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THE MAKING OF THE UNIVERSE 



JflMES COFFEE HARRIS 



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THE MAKING OF THE UNIVERSE 



BY 

JANES COFFEE HARRIS 

CAUE SPRING 
GEORGIA 

COPYRIGHT 1919 



Nonuibij 






ICI.A536964 



INDEX 



Book I. 

Chapter I. The Making of Matter 3 

Chapter II. The Structure of the Atom 5 

Chapter III. The Universe 33 

Book II. 

Chapter I. The Making of the Heavens 3 

Book III. 

Chapter I. The Making of the Earth 3 

Chapter II. The End of the World 25 

Book IV. 
The Making of Living Things 

Chapter I. The Dust Becomes Living Things 5 

Chapter II. Life Changes Its Forms 27 

Chapter III. The Forms of Life 39 

Chapter IV. The Factors of Evolution 65 

Chapter V. The Laws of Inheritance 79 

Chapter VI. The Facts From Fossils 97 

Chapter VII. The Cycle of Creation 117 



A Foreword 



The purpose of the author in the pages that are to 
follow is to J^al^a JaitMulstatement of the natural 
development of*^fe^?a?ir*fe)ears to the scientists 
now at work in the great universities of the world, 
and thus to present a view of nature consistent with 
all known things. He believes that our only hope of 
making progress toward truth and happiness is 
found in facing the facts and learning the laws of 
nature. In the light of modern science one may now 
see what are really facts and what are really laws, 
and he may discern a world of individual things 
which are but transient parts of an eternal and ever- 
changing universe, just as the eye can see the houses 
which are but parts of one city, or the trees which 
are but parts of one forest. This wonderful vision of 
the scheme of life seen by modern science the author 
will try to portray. 

In making this portrayal he has not presented the 
least thing that he can claim to be original with him- 
self, for he has kept well within the tested truths of 
science, the oft-furrowed fields of the biologists, a 
body of men as faithful and as able as ever lived. 
For this reason they are the best guides known to 
man in his search for realities. 

The view presented is a process of creation of 
varied living forms by an evolutionary method fol- 
lowing natural laws that seem to be without varia- 
bleness or shadow of turning. It will be seen that all 
forms of matter and phases of mind are brought 
into existence through these laws, and as they are 
invariable, they must be derived from the nature of 
an invariable Power, the Everlasting God. 

The view presented is a very recent achievement 
of man. It was in 1859 that Darwin's ''Origin of 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

Species" gave to the world his great discovery that 
the creation of new and ever better adapted forms of 
plants and animals was accomplished by the survival 
of the fittest, or to use his words, by natural selection 
of those best adapted to live. Now all higher insti- 
tutions of learning are teaching that this is true, and 
that the processes of nature are always the same 
when conditions are the same, that what we call 
natural laws are invariable. It was in 1895 that X- 
Rays were discovered by Roentgen which gave us 
insight into the world of atoms, whose existence had 
been known to all chemists since 1803. It was in 
1896 that spontaneous radio-activity was discovered 
by Becquerel and the atom suspected to be nothing 
more than a group of electrons. It was in 1898 that 
the electron was isolated by Sir Joseph J. Thompson, 
and it was in 1904, well after the beginning of the 
twentieth century, that the electron was proved by 
Rutherford and others to be the unit of mass and 
force, the sole building stone of every material thing 
in the universe. With the mind's eye we now plainly 
see that these almost infinitesimal units of sensitive 
energy weave by their combinations the eighty-three 
kinds of atoms and that these atoms weave by their 
combinations the ever-varying forms of matter 
known to us — the suns and the planets, the plants 
and the animals, those already woven and those now 
in the loom of time. We now plainly see that the 
units of sensitive energy which form the apparently 
insensible rock and dust and air and water are exact- 
ly like those which form the sensitive plants and the 
thinking animals. Indeed the same units of energy 
which today compose the rock may tomorrow com- 
pose the plant or animal. The sensitivity of the units 
that compose the rock becomes sensation in living 
things, and sensation in living things become 
thoughts in animals with a brain. 



The Making of Matter 



• Every reasoning man desires an answer to this 
question : What is, the ultimate nature of the matter 
which we see as rocks, trees, animals, stars, indeed 
everything? We observe that this matter is ever 
changing its form; now it builds a rock, which, as 
it disintegrates, becomes the dust of the earth ; this 
in turn becomes the grass which^ on being consumed 
by the ox, becomes the body of an animal that feels, 
thinks and acts. A sentient being has been devel- 
oped from the apparently insensible rock. The dust 
of the earth has become a thinking being. The ques- 
tion is: What are the real units of this protean ma- 
terial out of which every thing in the universe has 
been built? How did they become the sun and the 
stars and earth and planet and animal ? 

These are questions which physics, chemistry, 
biology, astronomy and geology are striving to ans- 
wer, and he who seeks to see the world as it is will 
try to find what is known by the scientists who de- 
vote their lives to these great fields of search for 
truths. Their opinion should be held in highest re- 
spect, for the reason that they, of all men, have the 
largest opportunity to find the facts and the greatest 
ability to interpret them. While it is, of course, im- 
possible for the scientists, however great their ability 
or opportujiity, to know the whole truth, we may 
safely say that they furnish the closest approxima- 
tions possible for us to obtain. 

An attentive student of the truths which they pro- 
claim as the results of their research will find a 
world far more wonderful and interesting than man 
could have imagined. The microscope, which en- 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 



larges an area a million times, and other instruments 
of precision multiply many thousand fold the power 
of the eye and other senses of man. These instru- 
ments reveal to him the ceaseless motion in every 
atom of matter and in all parts of space. They re- 
veal the play of the forces in the intricate mechan- 
ism of the cell, billions of which make up the form of 
every living thing, whether it be a tree, fish, bird, 
beast or man. They also reveal millions of stars 
which move and sparkle beyond the range of ordi- 
nary vision. The facts that have come to us in this 
way and that are verifiable by any student are far 
more important than those coming to us through 
our unaided senses, for they are realities which we 
must have in order to see the world as it is. 

We also find from these facts that all the forms 
of matter which we see about us are, without excep- 
tion, temporary structures. The rock and the water, 
the sun and the planets, the plants and the animals, 
and the stars of the heavens change from day to day, 
and in the course of time they, each and all, go out 
of existence. Nothing in nature that we can see or 
touch endures forever, but all the forms seen by us 
on earth or in the heavens come into existence and go 
out of existence. We find that all forms are but 
temporary groupings of atoms of oxygen, gold, iron, 
carbon, or other elements. All forms will cease to 
exist, for the atoms composing them were once the 
constituents of other forms and they will go from the 
forms which they now make to other forms to be 
made by them. The atoms that disappear from one 
form reappear in another. The cloud ceases to be 
when the atoms that compose it go to the making of 
rain drops. 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 



The Structure of the Atom 

The atoms of oxygen, gold, iron, etc.^, the "ele- 
ments," are not the ultimate particles of matter, for 
they each and all are composed of vibrating, self- 
active units of electric force, v^hich are apart from 
each other vast distances as compared with their 
size. The atom is therefore a very porous object. 
We know these to be facts even though we have 
never seen and can hardly hope ever to see the atoms 
themselves. They are so small that it takes many 
hundred of them to make a particle large enough to 
be seen through our highest power microscope. We 
now know, however, that atoms exist. We have be- 
lieved this since 1808, but only recently could it 
be truthfully said that we know it. By the passage 
of the X-rays through certain crystals we can now 
deduce the spaces between the planes of the atoms, 
finding these spaces to be in most cases less than one- 
hundred-millionth of an inch. This was done in 
1913. We now know that the crystals of rock salt 
and diamond have a certain geometrical figure be- 
cause the atoms composing them are arranged so as 
to form cubes. The X-rays have enabled us to see 
that the atoms of salt and diamond are equidistant 
from one another, as is true of all atoms in all solids, 
and they lie in certain planes between which X-rays 
(short ether waves) may pass without interference. 
The planes in which the atoms lie make on the photo- 
graph plate dark lines, and we get a figure like the 
grating to a window. Thus we prove that the atoms 
exist and at certain distances apart. A study of the 
X-ray spectra under different temperatures shows 
certain changes which are due to the motion of the 
atom. 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 



From an address by Sir Ernest Rutherford (Popu- 
lar Science Monthly, August, 1915) we make the 
following excerpt to show what is known as to the 
grouping of atoms in certain crystals: 

*'By a study of the position and intensity of the X- 
ray spectra in different orders thrown by the crys- 
tals, it was possible to examine in detail the structui^e 
of the crystal and to deduce the grating space, i. e., 
the distance between the successive planes of atoms. 
The subject is so large and the discovery of this 



^ 



FIG. 1. Arrangements of atoms in a rock salt crystal; 
white circles represent sodium atoms and black, chlo- 
rine. (Report of Smithsonian Institution, 1916.) 

method so recent, that so far only a few of the typi- 
cal crystals have been examined, but in these cases 
we are able to obtain most positive evidence of the 
grouping of the atoms in the crystal. The result in- 
dicates that the atom and not the molecule is the 
unit of the crystal structure. Consider the structure 
of the simple cubic crystal of rock salt (sodium chlo- 
ride.) The structure of the crystal deduced by 
Bragg is shown in Fig. 1. The sodium atoms are 
marked by black spheres, the chlorine atoms by 
white spheres. The simplicity of the crystal archi- 
tecture is obvious, for all the atoms are equidistant. 
The structure of the diamond is more complicated 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 



but it is one of great interest, for all the atoms in 
these cases are of but one kind, carbon.'* 

The existence of atoms is also proved by the fact 
that microscopic particles of matter suspended in 
water, as for instance globules in an emulsion made 
of gamboge or mastic, are seen under the microscope 
to dart hither and thither, to and fro, in startling and 
irregular fashion. This is due to the fact that they 
are being bombarded by molecules of water, infini- 
tesimal bodies made of two atoms of hydrogen and 





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'f *'^ 


m 





FIG. 2. Arrangement of carbon atoms in a diamond. 
(Report of Smithsonian Institution, 1916 ) 

one of oxygen. The minute globules of gamboge 
are urged first this way and then that, often sudden- 
ly shooting forward, by the impact of the myriads of 
molecules which do not strike on all the surface of 
the suspended particle with equal force. These 
movements of suspended particles in a liquid, called 
from their discoverer Brownian movements,, are just 
such as would be produced by the agitation of the 
molecules if the molecular theory of matter were 
true. The velocity of the agitation or vibration of 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 



tl;ie atoms increases or decreases with the increase 
or decrease of the temperature. It is believed, how- 
ever, that at absolute zero, 273 degrees below zero 
centigrade, the motion of the atom ceases. It is in- 
teresting to note in passing that the scientists suc- 
ceeded in 1914 in reaching a temperature within 
less than three degrees of this absolute zero. 

The atoms themselves, till recently thought to be 
indestructible and therefore permanent, are, as has 
been said, but various groupings of units of electric- 
ity. Some atoms, as radium and others, are losing 
their component units of electricity and when all the 
units have gone nothing is left. The atoms then go 
o it of existence. 

Each unit that composes the atom is a fixed quan- 
tity of electric force, which occupies a fixed quantity 
of space, there being two varieties, positive and 
negative. The atom is therefore an electrical struc- 
ture. The more units of electricity grouped together 
in an atom, the heavier the atom is. There is much 
reason to believe that the lightest atom, hydrogen, 
is composed of one positive charge as a nucleus, 
about which one negative electron rotates. An oxy- 
gen atom is believed to be made by a nucleus which 
has eight positive charges in excess of the negatives 
which are in the nucleus, and around this nucleus 
eight negative electrons revolve with inconceivable 
rapidity. A sulphur atom is believed to have a nu- 
cleus in which there are sixteen positive charges 
more than the negative electrons in it, and sixteen 
negative electrons revolving about this nucleus. 
Thus the scientists are actually counting the units of 
electricity that make up the atoms of the eighty- 
three elements known to exist. They have no doubt 
that the weight and combining power and all other 
qualities of these different elements are due entirely 
to the different number and arrangements of the 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 



units of electricity composing them. 

The atom is supposed to be spherical in shape. It 
may be described as a very porous electrical struc- 
ture which has a central nucleus positively charged, 
that is, it has more positive electrons than negative 
electrons. This nucleus is of exceedingly minute di- 
mensions, its diameter being not over a ten-thous- 
andth part of the diameter of the atom. The outer 
regions of the atoms have a number of negative elec- 
trons equal to about half the atomic weight, that is 
if the atomic weight of the oxygen be 16, there are 
8 negative electrons in the outer region of the atom. 
There are but 83 known elements or species of 
atoms from the lightest, hydrogen, to the heaviest, 
uranium. It is believed that some are yet to be dis- 
covered. These elements are built up one from the 
other by the successive additions of one and the same 
electrical element to the nucleus. Thus the hydro- 
gen atom and some electrons are in the nucleus of 
helium, the atom next in weight to hydrogen. The 
helium atom is found in the nucleus of the atom of 
radium and other radio-active elements and there 
is much reason to believe it to be present in the nu- 
cleus of the atoms of all the heavier elements. 

There is what is called an X-ray frequency char- 
acteristic of each of the elements. The square roots 
of these frequencies progress by equal steps from the 
lightest to the heaviest kind of atom. The discovery 
of the X-ray frequency of the various kinds of atoms 
has enabled the physicists to prove that there can be 
but 92 elements in existence from hydrogen to uran- 
ium inclusive. 

Recent researches in physics enable us to make 
the following statements. The positive electron is 
very much smaller but very much heavier than the 
negative. One positive charge weighs two thousand 
times as much as a negative electron. Thus most of 



10 THE MAKING OF MATTER 

the weight or mass of the atom is in its positive 
charge. The diameter of a positive charge is esti- 
mated to be one ten-quadrillionth of an inch ; on ac- 
count of its exceeding smallness it is called a point 
charge. The diameter of the negative charge called 
the electron is eighteen hundred times as great as a 
positive electron or about one five-billionth of an 
inch. The atom is in size a hundred thousand times 
as large as a negative electron and a hundred and 
eighty million times as large as a positive electron. 
As the heaviest atoms contain only three or four 
hundred positive and negative electrons, it is mani- 
fest that most of the space within the atom is vacant. 
As has been stated, the outer part of the atom is 
made up entirely of negative electrons. 

The various atoms are grouped together to form 
molecules. Thus a large atom, oxygen, and two 
smaller ones, hydrogen, are grouped to form a mole- 
cule of water. It would require trillions upon tril- 
lions of molecules to make a drop of water. It is 
estimated that there are as many atoms in a drop of 
water as there are drops of water in the Mediter- 
ranean Sea. Twelve atoms of carbon, twenty-two 
of hydrogen and eleven of oxygen become a mole- 
cule of granulated sugar. It requires hundreds of 
millions of molecules of sugar to make one of the 
small crystals which we see. 

Though we now know that all the atoms are made 
of the positive and negative charges of electricity, 
we know nothing of the origin of the units of elec- 
tricity. Of the qualities of the unit of electricity we 
know only that it is sensitive to the presence of the 
other units, like units repelling, unlikes attracting 
each other, and that it will always choose the best 
conductor and the shortest distance offered it. As 
stated above, it is charged with a definite quantity 
of electric force, which has been accurately deter- 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 11 

mined. This exploration of the atom and the meas- 
urement of its component element, the unit of elec- 
tricity, is perhaps the highest and most important 
achievement of man. The electron, i. e., the nega- 
tive unit, was discovered by Sir Joseph J. Thomson 
in 1898. 

There is much reason to believe that the atom is 
like a miniature solar system. The sun of the solar 
system is in the atom replaced by a nucleus in which 
there are both positive and negative units, the posi- 
tive being in excess, and around this nucleus nega- 
tive electrons revolve with almost infinite rapidity. 
Just as planets are forced to revolve around the sun 
by gravitation, so the negative electrons are forced 
by electrical tractation to revolve around the nucleus 
composed mainly of positive electrons; and just as 
the length of time required for the revolution of a 
planet around the sun is great or small according to 
its distance from the sun, so the distance of the nega- 
tive electrons from the positive nucleus determines 
the length of time of their revolution around it. As 
the distance of the ring of electrons from the nucleus 
of the atom is almost infinitely small, the length of 
time required for the electrons to go once around the 
orbit or ring is almost infinitely small. Thus the 
number of revolutions made by the negative elec- 
trons around the nucleus of the atom in a second is 
reckoned in trillions. It is now believed that the 
heavier atoms have several rings of electrons at dif- 
ferent distances from the nucleus. 

There are eight-three species of atoms. Four of 
these are radio-active and become transformed into 
nine other species. These atoms are arranged by 
the chemist in a table in the order of their weights, 
hydrogen being the lightest and uranium the heav- 
iest. If the weight of the oxygen be represented as 
16, then hydrogen would weigh 1.008, helium 3.99, 



12 THE MAKING OF MATTER 

lithium 6.94, glucinum 9.1, boron 11, carbon 12, 
nitrogen 14.01, and so on till the uranium is reached, 
whose weight is 238.5. These atomic weights must 
not be confused with the number of the atoms when 
they are arranged in series from lightest to heaviest. 
The mercury atom weighs just two hundred times as 
much as hydrogen, but its atomic number is 80. 

The atomic number increases as the number of 
positive charges in the nucleus exceed the number 
of electrons in the nucleus. As hydrogen has just 
one positive charge in the nucleus, its atomic number 
is 1. As helium has two positive charges in excess 
of negative electrons in its nucleus, it becomes num- 
ber 2, and so on till uranium is reached whose nu- 
cleus has ninety-two more positive charges in its 
nucleus than it has negative charges in its nucleus. 
Thus uranium has "atomic number" 92. According 
to this, hydrogen has one electron external to its nu- 
cleus, to neutralize the atom, helium has two exter- 
nal electrons and uranium has 92. As the chemical 
properties depend not on the weight but on the num- 
ber of external electrons, and this ''atomic number" 
depends on the excess of positive charges in the nu- 
cleus which are balanced by just that number of ex- 
ternal electrons the chemists find the arrangement 
of diflferent species of atoms according to atomic 
number a matter of great importance in their work. 
The meaning of atomic number may be more clearly 
understood by quoting the explanation set forth in 
the International Year Book for 1915 as follows: 

*'If the elements are written down in the order of 
ascending atomize weight, as is done in the ''periodic 
table," we assign to each element a number giving 
its position in this list. Hydrogen is No. 1, helium is 
No. 2, lithium 3, carbon 6, oxygen 8, etc. For short- 
ness this number is referred to as the "atomic num- 
ber" of the element. The nuclear charge of an atom 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 13 

is supposed to be made up of positive charges and 
negative electrons, the sum of the positive charges 
exceeding the sum of the negative charges by an 
amount just equal to the atomic number. That is, 
the atomic number signifies the excess of the posi- 
tive charges of the nucleus. Since the atom is elec- 
trically neutral, there being the same number of 
units of positive as of negative electricity, the nu- 
cleus must be surrounded by a number of electrons 
equal to the atomic number. Among other proper- 
ties, the chemical valency of the atom is determined 
by the stability with which these outer electrons are 
bound to the nucleus. On this theory the excess 
positive charge (the algebraic sum of the charges) 
on the nucleus is the fundamental constant which de- 
termines the properties of the atom. This nuclear 
charge increases by one as we go from element to 
element." 

Sir Ernest Rutherford, who received the Nobel 
prize for chemistry in 1908, and who has perhaps 
done more than any other in the exploration of the 
atom states that : 

"Each atom has a central nucleus of extremely 
high potential which is surrounded by negative elec- 
trons whosj^ motion it controls. The electrons are 
controlled by the nucleus very much as the planets 
are held to the solar system by gravitation, and, in- 
deed^, there appears to be strong reason to suppose 
that the force involved is really inversely proportion- 
al to the square of the distance as in the case of 
gravitation. From this point of view, the various 
elements are characterized by the number of elec- 
trons in the atom. Each electron carries a single 
negative charge, and the nucleus carries as many 
positive charges as there are electrons to be con- 
trolled. 

'It is possible to determine the number of positive 



14 THE MAKING OF MATTER 

charges contained in each one of the elements from 
hydrogen to uranium (the lightest to the heaviest) 
and it seems also that if the elements are appropri- 
ately arranged the charges increase by unit steps, 
so that hydrogen contains a single positive charge 
and uranium 92." 

Rutherford's conception of the atom as ''purely 
electrical structures" was set forth by him in 1911. 
All experiments since have confirmed it in all essen- 
tial particulars. He conceived the atom to have **a 
massive charged core or nucleus of very small di- 
mensions surrounded by a cluster of electrons prob- 
ably in rapid motion which extend for distances 
from the center very great compared with the di- 
ameter of the nucleus. The positive electrons of the 
nucleus are very much smaller than the negative 
electrons balanced by them, the latter being eighteen 
hundred times as large as the former. The positive 
electron is so small that the group forming the nu- 
cleus of the atom is called a ''point charge." All the 
heavier atoms are believed to have a nucleus of posi- 
tive electrons and hydrogen atoms and this nucleus 
is surrounded by negative electrons in rapid motion, 
the nucleus having a diameter about one ten-thous- 
andth of the whole. They are purely electrical 
structures, their stability being due to the fact that 
the positive corpuscles hold the negative corpuscles 
in balance." 

It seems reasonable to suppose that originally the 
sijnplest and lightest elements were formed first and 
that the others were an evolution from them in the 
order of weight and complexity. According to this, 
when electrons would gravitate together to become 
the stars the hydrogen atoms would form first and 
then the helium. Then these would be bombarded by 
the free electrons about them, some of which would 
•be held in balance with hydrogen as a nucleus to 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 15 

form oxygen and the rest. As a matter of fact the 
helium atom is found in the nucleus of the radium 
atom, helium being constantly thrown off as the ra- 
dium disintegrates. The elements observed to exist 
in the stars strikingly confirm this theory. The hot- 
test stars, those that shine with white light and that 
are supposed to be the youngest, are composed main- 
ly of hydrogen and helium atoms, the two lightest, 
while the^stars of least heat, those that shine with 
red light and that are supposed to be the oldest, con- 
tain the heaviest elements. As all the elements are 
multiples by weight of hydrogen, it seems reasonable 
to believe that they have hydrogen atoms as nuclei, 
and as many of them differ in weight by just the 
weight of the helium atom, it is reasonable to believe 
that these have helium, a remarkably stable atom, 
in their nuclei. As the temperature of the star de- 
creases a condition would exist that favors the stabil- 
ity of a group of electrons in which positive and 
negative force was equally balanced. 

If an atom of any one of the elements were to lose 
a sufficient number of electrons, it would become an 
atom of another element. Each radium atom, for 
instance, in disintegrating gives off both an atom of 
helium and an atom of niton. The radium has 226.4 
for its atomic weight, which is the combined weight 
of helium 4 and of niton 222.4. Niton disintegrates 
so rapidly that in four days half of it has changed 
to other elements. Each atom of the niton loses an 
atom of helium and the residue loses another atom 
of helium. When this process has gone on five times 
an element comes into being so close to the atomic 
weight of lead 207.1, that it is supposed to be lead. 
It ceases to be radio-active. 

Sir J. J. Thomson, who is thought by many to be 
the greatest living physicist, is convinced that the 
properties of an element are determined by the ar- 



16 THE MAKING OF MATTER 

rangements of the electrons. According to his view 
layers of electrons compose the atom just as layers 
make up the body of an onion. He says, (Romanes 
Lectures 1914) : 

'The electrons in the outside layer will be held 
in their places less firmly than those in the inner lay- 
ers. They are mobile and will arrange themselves 
more easily under the forces exerted upon them by 
the atoms. As the force which one atom exerts on 
another depends 'on the arrangements of the elec- 
trons in the atom, the force which the neutral atom 
exerts on other atoms, what we may call the social 
qualities of the atom, will depend mainly on the 
outer belt of the electrons. Now these forces are the 
origin of chemical affinity, and of such physical 
phenomena as surface tension, cohesion, intrinsic 
pressure, viscosity, ionising power, in fact of by far 
the most important properties of the atom, and the 
most interesting part of the atom is the outside belt 
of electrons. As this belt will be pulled about and 
distorted by proximity of other atoms, we should ex- 
pect that the properties depending on the outer lay- 
er of the electrons would not be carried unchanged 
by an atom through all its compounds with other 
elements; they will depend on the kind of atom with 
which this atom is associated in these compounds; 
they will be what chemists call constitutive, and not 
intrinsic. On the other hand the electrons in the 
strata nearer the center of the atom will be much 
more firmly held; they will require the expenditure 
of much more work to remove them from the atom, 
and they will be but little affected by the presence 
of other atoms,, so that such properties that depend 
on these inner electrons will be carried unchanged by 
the atom into its chemical compound. The proper- 
ties of the real atoms are in accordance with these 
suggestions. By far the larger number of the prop- 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 17 

erties of atoms are of the constitutive type which 
we have associated with the outer belt of electrons. 
There are, however, as we have seen, other proper- 
ties of the atom which are intrinsic to it; these we 
associate with the inner layer of electrons." 

The essential difference between metals and non- 
metals, and the reason that some elements are con- 
ductors of electricity, is that the metals and conduct- 
ors are composed of atoms that easily lose their elec- 
trons. The atoms of the metals have a weak attrac- 
tion for electrons which when not bound to the atoms 
move freely between the atoms, which are apart 
from each other. The metals and other conductors 
of electricity have ''molecules made up of such atoms 
that there might well be an evaporation of cor- 
puscles (the electrons) into the intramolecular 
spaces. We should then have these free corpuscles 
(the electrons) in addition to the bound ones inside 
the atoms." (Ames Constitution of Matter, p. 212.) 

It often happens that an atom will have an elec- 
tron added to it or an electron taken from it, and in 
this event the atom is called an ion, which means 
"going" or ''traveling," for these ions tend to go 
away from the surface of the metal or other sub- 
stance of which they are a part. If the atom has an 
electron added to it, it is called a positive ion. A 
negative ion and a positive ion attract each other, 
but like ions repel each other. 

Chemists tell us that it is easy to find how many 
atoms are contained in a given weight of any sub- 
stance. They can pass a certain quantity of elec- 
tricity in a liquid and it will deposit a certain 
amount of substance. As each unit of electricity 
will deposit an atom and the volume of the total de- 
posit can be measured, chemists can compute the 
number of atoms in a given volume. Another way 
is found in counting the helium atoms shot off from 



18 THE MAKING OF MATTER 

radium. They make a fluorescence as they strike a 
surface coated with sulphide of zinc, and so they can 
be counted. The number striking in a given time 
may be computed and the gas collected during this 
time. Thus the number of atoms in a given volume 
of helium is accurately known. It is 77 billion bil- 
lion per cubic inch. There are several other methods 
of counting atoms and all give about the same re- 
sults. 

The discovery of radium and its qualities opened 
the way to the facts as to the structure of the atom. 
Radium is wasting itself away at the rate which will 
make it lose half its weight in two thousand years. 
Streams of electrons are flying from it at the veloc- 
ity of light. These are called beta rays. A stream 
of helium atoms is flying from it with a velocity 
about one-tenth that of light, but, as a helium atom 
weighs eight thousand times as much as an electron, 
streams of them, which are called alpha rays, have 
much greater energy than the beta rays. A single 
alpha particle from radium on striking sulphide of 
zinc will cause a spark which can be seen with a lens. 
In this way they may be counted. 

It is believed that the radium atoms are exploding 
and each breaking up into pieces, a helium and a ni- 
ton atom. The niton atom will also explode and give 
off another helium atom. The energy for these ex- 
plosions is within the atom, and for radium it has 
been estimated that it gives off for the radiation of 
a given quantity a fourth of a million times as much 
energy as would be obtained by burning an equal 
weight of coal. 

The electrons which compose the atom are as far 
apart compared with their size as are the planets of 
the solar system. Atoms are so porous that electrons 
from radium go straight through a sheet of metal 
one sixtieth part of an inch thick, and in doing this 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 19 

they must penetrate the interior of more than a mil- 
lion of atoms. 

Comstock in his Nature of Matter and Electricity 
(1917) says that the atoms vary in size from one 
three-hundred millionth of an inch to one one-hun- 
dred-millionth of an inch, and that the electrons 
have a diameter about one one-hundred-thousandth 
of an atom. He also says that if the average atom be 
represented by a space one hundred yards in diam- 
eter, the electrons on the same scale would be about 
the size of a pin head. Its weight is one two-thous- 
andths that of a hydrogen atom. The electron is be- 
lieved to be spherical in shape, and all of them exact- 
ly alike. 

There are, however, as has been said, two kinds of 
electricities, the positive charges and the negative 
electrons, and as all things are composed of these 
units, it seems to be true that the attractions and re- 
pulsions of these electricities cause all of the phe- 
nomena of nature. A body is said to be charged with 
positive electricity when it has too few negative elec- 
trons to just balance the positives. When it has 
more electrons than positive charges it is said to be 
negatively charged. The positive electricity never 
leaves the atom, but the electrons on the outer re- 
gions of the atom may leave it, or more electrons 
may attach to an atom than is necessary to balance 
the positive charge, which is always in the nucleus 
of the atom. The positive charge is never found ex- 
cept inside an atom. 

When the electrons that are between the atoms of 
a metal are caused to move in the same direction in 
a wire we have what is known as an electric current. 
This current which contains an enormous number 
of electrons moves very slowly, perhaps only an 
inch a minute or a mile in seventeen hours. What 
is called the speed of electricity is an impulse which 



20 THE MAKING OF MATTER 

travels with the speed of light, 186,300 miles in a 
second. This speed of electricity is due to the fact 
that the impulse is passed on very rapidly from elec- 
tron to electron, so that when the electrons at the 
near end of a wire are set moving those at the dis- 
tant end are caused to take up the motion a very 
small fraction of a second later, even though it be 
many hundred miles away. Thus, though the actual 
speed of the electrons is usually very slow, the rate 
of transmission of motion from electron to electron 
is very great. The action is closely similar to what 
follows where one end of a rope is pulled. The im- 
pulse which results in the movement of the other 
end travels with much greater speed than the rope 
itself. (Comstock op. cita.) 

As has been stated, the physicists now know the 
size of the atom and they have taken much pains to 
give a correct conception of it. Sir Ernest Ruther- 
ford, Sir Joseph J. Thomson, Sir William Thompson, 
Sir Oliver Lodge, Milliken, and all the greatest 
physicists of Great Britain and America and Ger- 
many and France estimate that the diameter of the 
atom is one one-hundred-millionth of an inch, and 
that if a drop of water were to be magnified to be 
the size of the eartb, it would be seen to be composed 
of atoms the size of baseballs. The number of atoms 
in a cubic centimeter (about a thimbleful) of helium 
gas at zero temperature and sea level pressure is 
known to be two hunded seventy five quadrillions. 
These facts indicate the size of an atom. The fact 
that it would require six septillion hydrogen atoms 
to weigh a gram (about one twenty-eighth of an 
ounce) should be sufficient to indicate its weight. 
Despite the inconceivable smallness of both the size 
and the weight of the atom the chemists have been 
able since 1808, now more than a century, to count 
the atoms as positively and accurately as a man using 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 21 

bis ordinary senses can count grains of sand. 

Except in the few radio-active elements the atoms 
hold their electrons together so powerfully that the 
atoms seem to be permanent structures under the 
conditions now on the earth. At least there seems 
now no reason to believe that man can hope to dis- 
rupt the atom or make it behave as radium does. 

It is believed that atoms hold together in a mole- 
cule by electric attraction. When an atom with a 
negative charge is near an atom with a positive 
charge the two would rush together and cling to each 
other. For instance if hydrogen gas and chlorine 
gas are poured together in a vessel and heated they 
will combine suddenly and form a liquid hydro chlor- 
ine acid. The heat is supposed to detach some of 
the electrons from the atoms. As the chlorine atoms 
attract the electrons they become negatively charged 
and attract the hydrogen atoms, which have too few 
electrons. This is the cause of chemical affinity. 

Just as one atom is attracted by another of a dif- 
ferent species, probably because the one is positive- 
ly charged and the other negatively, to form mole- 
cules, so molecules attract. each other and cohere 
in large numbers to form the rocks and all the ob- 
jects about us. 

What is called the heat of a body is due to the 
ceaseless motion of the atoms composing it, the body 
becoming hotter as the atoms move faster. This vi- 
bration of the atoms is through a smaller distance 
in a solid than in a liquid, while in the gaseous state 
each atom flies in a straight line till it strikes an- 
other atom, usually traversing a distance a thousand 
times its own diameter. The more rapid the motion 
of the atoms or the molecules the warmer a body is. 
If the atoms cease to vibrate there is no heat, the 
condition of absolute zero, 273 degress C. below 
zero. 



22 THE MAKING OF MATTER 

Though there is no friction between the atoms 
they lose energy by radiating the heat waves formed 
by their vibration. They may be made to vibrate 
faster or slower by the heat waves coming from sur- 
rounding objects. The friction of one body with an- 
other makes the molecules on the surface vibrate 
more violently and this causes waves that are more 
violent and thus the body becomes hotter. The 
work done in rubbing becomes the increased energy 
of the atoms. 

All bodies at ordinary temperature contain enor- 
mous quantities of heat and this can be converted in- 
to power. The heat is the energy of its vibrating 
atoms and electrons. It has been estimated that the 
heat in an ordinary glass of cold water would be 
sufficient energy or power to lift the whole glass a 
distance of thirty miles above the earth. (Comstock 
op. cita.) 

From R. A. Milliken, Professor of Physics, Uni- 
versity of Chicago (Popular Science Monthly, May, 
1912,) we get a clear statement of what is now 
taught in physics as to the atom : 

"About 1900 a great stride forward was taken 
when electrical currents began to be looked upon as 
due to the transport through the wire of discrete 
units of electricity, now called electrons, these units 
being handed on from atom to atom or else being 
pushed along through the interstices between the 
atoms. 

''The electrons are so small in volume and are 
separated from one another within the atom by so 
large spacer, that one of them can shoot through 
hundreds and thousands of atoms without hitting 
anything or doing anything whatever to these atoms. 
Its diameter is about one one-hundred-thousandth 
of the atom. The number which courses each second 
through the filament of a common 16 candle power 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 23 

incandescent light is about a billion billion. The 
electron is thought by many reputable scientists of 
the present day to be the primordial thing out of 
which all matter is built up, so that from this point 
of view the different atoms of ordinary matter are 
meirely different groupings of these fundamental 
electric units. 

''This kinetic theory of matter is merely the asser- 
tion that everything in this world of ours is in a state 
of restless, seething motion, that all matter is com- 
posed of minute parts called molecules, which are 
eternally pounding and jostling against one another. 
In gases these molecules are so far apart that the 
forces of attraction which exist between them are 
quite negligible and they dart hither and thither like 
gnats in a swarm, only with the stupendous speed of 
a mile a second (in the case of hydrogen) and rico- 
chet unceasingly one against another, and the walls 
of the containing vessel, producing by this bombard- 
ment all the familiar phenomena of pneumatic tires 
and gaseous bodies generally. If you could magnify 
the air in an ordinary room just a thousand million 
times, that is, to make a good-sized marrowfat pea 
swell to the size of the earth, you would see objects 
about as big as a football — we will not say what 
shape because we do not know anything about it, 
but they would probably be of the same shape in a 
given gas — and if the motions would stop long 
enough to enable us to get a snapshot of the whole 
situation, you would see on the average one of these 
objects in a cubical space ten feet on a side. Then 
if you let them go again, you would see these foot- 
balls shoot on the average through thirty such imagi- 
nary cubical rooms before it hit another. This dis- 
tance we call the mean free path of a gas molecule. 

'Tn the liquid state the molecules are packed 
closely together by cohesive forces, yet they continu- 



24 THE MAKING OF MATTER 

ally wiggle and squirm over and around one another, 
so that if you will be content this time with a ten mil- 
lion-fold magnification, the liquid would look very 
much like a mass of wriggling, squirming maggots — 
not a pretty picture, perhaps, but a fairly accurate 
one, I think. 

"In solids the molecules are in most part locked 
up tightly in crystalline forms so that their motions 
are reduced to mere trembling, unavailing protests 
against their imprisonment. If a biological analogy 
would make the picture more vivid, you can imagine 
the cages of a menagerie arranged in squares or 
other regular figures, while the caged animals pace 
restlessly to and fro between their bars." 

The vibrations of the electrons and atoms are 
known to cause waves of various length to traverse 
space, and these waves are known to be the cause 
of the heat and light and other phenomena of na- 
ture. For the last quarter of a century we have be- 
lieved that a substance called the ether of space per- 
meated every part of the universe and that with 
every oscillation of electrons or atom waves of ether 
were set up which traveled in every direction with 
the speed of light and which were radiated from the 
electron very much as waves of water radiate from 
a center when a stone strikes the surface of a lake. 
This is still generally believed to be true, but some 
leading scientists now hold that there is no ether 
and the electrons send out units of force, or "bullets 
of energy" of various lengths that cause heat, light, 
etc. They believe that "light and heat fall from the 
sun or elsewhere as raindrops from a cloud." 
Whether the ether wave theory or the "quanta" 
theory of separate units of light be true, it is certain 
that waves of various length are caused by the mo- 
tion of the electron to traverse space. 

The known waves are called the X-ray, gamma 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 25 

rays, ultra violet rays, visible light rays giving the 
various colors, infra red rays, heat waves and the 
wireless telegraph waves. The X-rays are waves so 
short that they may penetrate between the atoms of 
the most solid bodies. Some of them are less than a 
ten millionth part of a millimeter (one millimeter 
equals one-twenty-fifth of an inch). It would re- 
quire hundreds of millions of X-rays to cover an 
inch. The gamma rays are the X-rays of short wave 
length given off by radium and the other radio-act- 
ive bodies. The ultra violet rays are many thousand 
times as long as some of the X-rays. Though invisi- 
ble to the eye, the ultra violet rays produce chemi- 
cal action and affect the photographic plate. The 
waves just longer than the ultra violet rays produce 
light ranging in length from about one one-hundred- 
thousandth of an inch which produces violet, to about 
two one-hundred-thousandths of an inch which pro- 
duces red. Just longer than these are the infra-red 
rays which convey radiant heat, but do not affect 
the eye. These infra-red rays and the light rays 
bring from the sun that stream of energy on which 
all life on the earth depends. The heat waves are 
just longer than the light rays and infra-red rays. 
The longest waves are those discovered by Heinrich 
Hertz in 1888 and used for wireless telegraphy. 
They range in length from 3 millimeters to 10,000 
meters. The length of the ether waves actually em- 
ployed in wireless telegraphy varies from a hundred 
yards to two miles. It will be seen from this that 
the longest waves known to us are more than a 
hundred trillion times as long as the shortest ones 
known to us. The shortest ones we use in our X-ray 
machines to see within opaque bodies; those many 
times longer give us light; those still longer give us 
heat and chemical effect. 

Comstock says (op. cita) : 'There seems to be no 



26 tHE MAKING OF MATTER 

fundamental difference between light waves and the 
electric waves used in wireless telegraphy, except 
that the latter are very much longer and the vibra- 
tion very much slower than in the former case. Light 
waves and ''wireless" waves are thus related in the 
same way that a high pitched sound is related to one 
of low pitch," 

"Wireless" waves (i. e. **Hertz" waves) are al- 
ways produced by causing a charge of electricity to 
oscillate to and fro. According to the prevailing 
view waves are thus set up in the ether of space in a 
manner somewhat similar to the sound waves set by 
a vibrating bell. 

The radiant heat from the sun is also of the elec- 
tric-wave type of vibration, so that the sun must be 
considered a light and heat radiator because of the 
vast number of vibrating electrons which it con- 
tains. According to the modern wave theory, when- 
ever an electric charge, whether this charge be that 
of one electron or ma^iy, vibrates back and forth, it 
radiates electrical waves which go out and in all 
directions in space. If the oscillation is very slow 
they are called Hertzian waves. If the oscillation 
is more rapid they are in general heat waves, and 
if the vibration is still more rapid the waves are 
capable of affecting the retina of the eye, and they 
are called light waves. It is a generally accepted 
fact that all electric waves, whether they correspond 
to light, heat or Hertzian waves, travel with the 
same speed in empty space but with different speeds 
in material bodies. 

Thus we find the movement of the electrons cause 
all light and heat and energy and make up the atoms 
of the material bodies and that it is the mutual in- 
fluence of these electrons that causes all the forms 
of objects about us, for all these objects are but ag- 
gregations of atoms made up of and controlled by 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 27 

electrons. As the higher animals are among the ob- 
jects made up of these electrons, their capacity to 
feel sensations would seem to indicate that the elec- 
trons have a quality from which the feeling of sen- 
sations is derived. If so, the electron is not alto- 
gether a material body, but a body with attributes 
that could be called spiritual or mental. 

Sir Francis Younghusband in his book. Mutual In- 
fluence, gives a graphic description of the nature of 
things which follow closely that set forth in our pre- 
ceding pages. He says: 

'If with the eyes of the highest scientific author- 
ities, we look into the bottom of things and try to 
discover what they really are, we find them wholly 
different from what they seem. When we are stand- 
ing on a hard granite rock we seem to be on some- 
thing in the highest degree tangible, endurable, 
motionless, the very exemplar of all that is meant 
by solidity and immobility. And yet science shows 
that what seems so solid and immobile is, in reality, 
an aggregate of countless particles each of infinitesi- 
mal parvitude, and composed^ not, as we should 
think, of something hard and tangible, but, on the 
contrary, of what is entirely "immaterial," intangi- 
ble, imponderable, ethereal, and each circling with 
a velocity which would leave the fastest rifle bullet 
simply standing. We should find further that a 
piece of rock no larger than what we might take up 
between our fingers contains energy enough, if we 
only knew how to get at it, to drive the Mauretania 
several times across the Atlantic and back. The 
activity and the spontaneity of the activity, the en- 
ergy and the ''immateriality" of the final units of 
matter — ^these are the points that strike us. 

"The whole material world, so called, whether it 
be rocks or plants, our own bodies, or the most dis- 
tant stars, is all built up of atoms. And the atoms 



28 THE MAKING OF MATTER 

had,, until recent years, been considered hard, solid, 
and unchangeable. But the experiments and re- 
searches of Sir Joseph Thomson and others have 
forced us to discard the old idea, and the atom is now 
believed to consist of a nucleus of positive electricity 
surrounded by a system of negative electrons prob- 
ably rotating in rings, a complex planetary system 
in which the negative electrons and the form of posi- 
tive electricity revolve about each other with enor- 
mous speed. 

''Not the atom, therefore, but the electron is the 
ultimate particle of matter at which science has so 
far arrived. And these electrons are of a minute- 
ness beyond all possible conception. Even an atom 
is unimaginably minute, but an electron is a thous- 
andfold minuter still. Sir Oliver Lodge puts it down 
1-10,000,000,000,000 of a centimeter. If the earth, 
he says, represented an electron, an atom would 
occupy a sphere with the sun as center and four 
times the distance of the earth as radius. 

''The excessive minuteness is one point to notice 
about the electron; another is the tremendous speed 
at which it is incessantly revolving, a speed which 
would take it three or four times around the earth in 
a second. 

"But when we come to examine what the electron 
actually consists of, we find that it is no gritty, tangi- 
ble speck of matter, however minute, but is a disem- 
bodied charge of electricity without any material 
nucleus. It is simply a center of energy, or, as some 
physicist believe, a minute whirl or vortex analogous 
to a gyroscope in the bottom of that hypothetical 
ether which science assumes to be the fundamental 
element of the universe, which holds the whole to- 
gether and which forms the connecting medium be- 
tween every separate part, be it the remotest star on 
the confines of space or a minute electron. 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 29 

*'But minute though these electrons are, and as 
small in comparison with a whole atom as a fly in a 
church, and few in number in each atom though 
they are, yet they are so exceedingly forceful and 
energetic, revolving round and round with such stu- 
pendous velocity as to give the impression that the 
atom is a solid incompressible body. So it is these 
energetic little particles which, in their mutual re- 
lations, constitute what we call the atom of matter. 
They give it its inertia ; they enable it to cling on to 
others which come within short range, with the force 
which we call cohesion ; and by the excess or defect 
of one or more constituents they exhibit chemical 
properties and attach themselves with vigor to others 
in like or rather opposite case. 

''Such are the ultimate particles of matter of 
which the whole universe is composed. Of these 
immaterial vortices or centers of energy are built up 
the thousand million stars, the sun, the planets, this 
earth and all that is upon it, the plants, the animals, 
and all of us men, the lowest and the highest. We 
and all things else are made of these electrons 
formed into atoms, of these atoms formed into 
groups, of these groups made up into systems, of 
systems of systems, and so on. And electrons of all 
the elements and in every part of the universe are 
precisely and exactly like each other. 

"Two points in this examination of the fundamen- 
tal constituents of which the universe is built up 
have to be particularly observed: firstly, their im- 
materiality, and secondly, their mobility. Even if 
we were able with some marvelous microscope act- 
ually to see an electron, and if we had the means of 
taking one up between our fingers and of touching 
it and feeling it, we should find that it utterly evaded 
both our sight and touch, because of its ''immater- 
iality," because it is nothing hard, solid, and tangi- 



30 THE MAKING OF MATTER 

ble, however minute it might be, but simply a vortex 
of imponderable ether, a mere center of energy. 
And what ether is, and what energy is, beyond mere 
convenient expressions, no man can yet say. 

"Their '"immateriality" is the first point to note 
about the fundamental units of matter, and the sec- 
ond is their mobility. They are never at rest. They 
are in incessant motion. And the speed with which 
they move is literally lightning speed, a rapidity 
which would take them around the earth in less than 
half a second. With this tremendous velocity they 
revolve round and round the atom, and when they 
are free, as in the emissions from radium, they dart 
through space with the same lightning speed. 

"'Science affirms that all particles of matter act as 
they do because of, and in virtue of, certain proper- 
ties with which they are themselves endowed. They 
are self-active, and within specific limits they may be 
said to act of their own free will. It is difficult to re- 
gard even the simplest particle of matter as any- 
thing less than spiritual, for scientific men are driven 
to use such terms as "'behavior," "mutual influence," 
implying something of spirit even in the fundamental 
units i mattei.'' 

T. C. Chamberlin in The Origin of the Earth 
(1916) p. 243, says: 

"What we conveniently regard as merely material 
is at the same time spiritual ; what we try to reduce 
to the mechanistic is at the same time volitional. 
The emergence of the living from the organic, the 
psychic from the physiologic, are features of the 
earth's evolution." 

The author has tried in the foregoing pages to pre- 
sent the results of research as to the structure of the 
atoms of which all objects are composed. As has 
been seen, these results have made it clear that all 
the universe is built of electricity, that the electric 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 31 

unit is the building stone of which all objects in the 
heavens and the earth are made, that the electric 
unit is the only thing that endures throughout all 
time, 

"Unhurt amid the war of elements, 

The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds." 

The results of research also show that this one 
element moves in units of force, the positive and the 
negative, and that it is the mutual influence of these 
units that causes all the changes and creates all the 
objects in the universe. This being the fact, it is 
reasonable to believe that God, the creative power, 
who fills all space and is the source of all things, 
lives and moves in the nature of electric units from 
whose activities are derived all the forms of matter 
and all the phases of thought, all matter and all 
mind. 

Though we know but little of the nature of the 
electron, the building stone of all the atoms, we do 
know that it fills a fixed quantity of space with a 
fixed quantity of force that is sensitive and self act- 
ive. As sensitivity and self activity are character- 
istics of mind we may conclude that matter is com- 
posed of particles which are at once material and 
mental, and that the mind of animals is due to the 
activities of a body which is composed of spiritual 
units. The flesh which is seen is in this view com- 
posed of units of sensitive force which are unseen. 
Just as a loom might be constructed in all its parts 
of cotton and from cotton threads produce various 
kinds of cloth that are also cotton, so the brain may 
be composed of particles which are mental and from 
mental threads produce various kinds of sensations 
and ideas, which are also mental. If we could but 
know all the qualities of the electrons we might dis- 
cover its motion to be due to its mental or spiritual 



32 THE MAKING OF MATTER 

nature, just as we know our bodies are moved by the 
actions of our minds. We know that the motion of 
the body is the result of the activity of our mind. It 
may be so with the motion of the electrons. It may 
be that our minds can see matter because matter is 
made of the same qualities as compose mind. A 
universal sensitivity of which the attractions and re- 
pulsions of the electrons give us but a glimpse and 
which is beyond our powers to comprehend, may be 
that from which all minds are developed. 

Though the mind of man must, in this view, have 
its source in the Creative power, it is but human van- 
ity to assume that the mind of man can comprehend 
God to perfection. Just as the white light compre- 
hends in its nature all the individual colors and tints 
which shine through a glass prism, so the Eternal 
Mind comprehends in its nature all the individual 
sensations and thoughts which are experienced by 
a human body. Just as it is impossible for the yellow 
color to include the w^hite light, so it is impossible 
for the mind of man to comprehend the Eternal 
Mind. It is, however, a reasonable faith that man 
is one of the children of God, if we mean by that to 
say that in the mind of man we see revealed a phase 
of the Creative Power. 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 33 



The Universe 

Our sun and its planets seem to be near the center 
of a universe of myriads of stars, of which only four 
thousand are visible to the naked eye. The stars 
are called ''fixed stars," for they are the same that 
studded the heavens in the days of Homer, v^ho de- 
scribes a number of them. Job wrote of the Pleiades 
and the bands of Orion, which no doubt were nearly 
as resplendent then as they are today. Even to 
primitive man a hundred thousand years ago these 
fixed stars were nearly the same in place and power 
as they are today. 

Astronomers generally believe the number of stars 
to be not infinitely great, but of the order of two 
thousand millions, or approximately the same as the 
number of human beings now living. We know that 
each of these twinkling stars is a sun like that which 
warms our world. Many of these stars glow with a 
heat far more intense than our sun, which, it is in- 
teresting to note, is about 6,000 degrees centigrade 
and warms our earth with a constant heat that equals 
two calories a minute on each square centimeter of 
its surface. We know the diameter of only a few of 
thte stars and these vary from one million miles to ten 
million miles. As the sun's diameter is 866,000 
miles it must be one of the smallest stars. Yet if the 
sun were a hollow ball it would hold more than a 
million balls the size of the earth. 

The total number of stars visible in our largest 
telescope is about seventy millions, but the number 
which can be recorded on photographic plates by 
means of long exposures with our largest reflecting 
telescope is many times as great. The result is ob- 
tained by photographing small squares of the night 



34 THE MAKING OF MATTER 




From photograph in Comstock's Astronomy. — D. Appleton & Co. 

The nebula in the constellation Andromeda seen above is in 
width five hundred tliousand times the distance of the earth 
from the sun. It would require eight years for light to travel 
across it traveling as it does, at the rateof eleven million miles 
a minute. It is barely visible to the naked eye, to which it ap- 
pears to be a small vviiite glowing mass; butas seen through a 
telescope it is a vast luminous whirlpool of glowing matter in 
which certain places are thickened and rounded. We can see 
a large central mass and other thickened rounded places of 
smaller size, which by gravitation must draw into themselves 
all the matter now in the spaces between them. This matter 
in the space between would aggregate into small bodies, which 
would fall into the large central mass or into the other large 
masses. The central mass would thus become a sun, as the 
other large masses would become other suns. The white dots 
in the photograph are stars. 

The lightfrom this nebula broken by the spectroscope shows 
that the matter of the nebula is the same as that found in our 
sun and earth, hydrogen, helium, etc. 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 35 

sky, carefully measured, and then counting the stars 
that the photographic plate shows within some of 
the squares that appear to contain about the aver- 
age number. The star nearest to us. Alpha Centauri, 
is twenty-five trillion (25,000,000,000,000) miles 
from us. It requires four and a half years for light 
to travel that distance. 

The stars are crowded toward the plane of the 
Milky Way. Looking from our position near the 
center toward the rim of this vast circular plate of 
space, that is toward the region of the Milky Way, 
we find in our telescope myriads of stars, and the 
Milky Way itself in powerful telescopes is resolved 
into a throng of separate stars. Looking in a line 
perpendicular to the plane of the Milky Way, and 
toward the axis of this circular plate of space, we 
find far fewer stars and apparently all of them near 
enough to be descried by our telescopes. 

The universe of stars — our stellar system — is be- 
lieved by the students of the subject, all but unani- 
mously, to occupy a limited volume of space that is 
somewhat the shape of a very flat pocket watch, or 
more strictly, a much flattened spheroid. However, 
it is not intended to convey the impression that the 
boundaries of the stellar system are sharply defined 
or that the stars are uniformly distributed through- 
out the spheroid, and all at once, at the surface of 
the spheroid, cease to exist, but only that the stars 
are more or less irregularly distributed throughout 
a volume of space roughly spheroidal in form, and 
that the thinning out of the stars near the confines 
of the system may be quite gradual and irregular. 
The equatorial plane of the spheroid is coincident 
with the central plane of the Milky Way. We see 
the Milky Way as a bright band encircling the sky, 
because in looking toward the Milky Way we are 
looking out through the greatest depth of stars. 



36 THE MAKING OF MATTER 

The portion of space in which stars are known to 
exist is estimated to be 3,000 light-years (18 quadril 
lion miles) in thickness, that is in a direction perpen- 
dicular to the plane of the Milky Way, while the 
diameter of the spheroid, that is, the plane of the 
Milky Way, is probably at least ten times that dis- 
tance. 

'To bring down the dimensions of the universe to 
finite comprehension, we must divide the scale of 
nature by a thousand million. Then the earth would 
be represented by a pebble half an inch in diameter, 
circling once a year about a sun 4.5 feet in diameter, 
at a distance of 500 feet. The nearest star, a Cen- 
tauri, would on this scale be seen as two spheres re- 
volving about each at a distance apart equal to two 
miles, and each comparable in size to the sun. This 
double star would be situated at a distance of about 
25,000 miles from our planetary system with its sun, 
but the other stars in this part of the stellar system 
would be separated from each other on the average 
by more than twice this distance. The Galaxy or 
Milky Way, is the cloudlike zone of faint stars which 
extends as a belt around the sky. The stars in it ap- 
pear faint and close together because of their re- 
moteness. They seem to constitute the outer zone 
of our stellar system, and its dimensions are only 
vaguely known. On this diminutive scale, dividing 
the scale of nature by a hundred million, the Milky 
Way might be found to be encompassed by a circle 
of a hundred million miles diameter or it might be 
more or less." (Joseph Barrill in the Origin of the 
Earth.) 

With the telescope we find in the heavens no less 
than 450,000 nebulae, cloudlike masses of glowing 
matter. Many of these show spiral forms. It is be- 
lieved that some of these are leading to the forma- 
tion of suns and planets that will become solar sys- 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 37 

terns like our own; others are believed to be light 
from other systems of millions of stars like the sys- 
tem of which our sun is a star. 

Says Dr. W. W. Campbell of Lick Observatory in 
the Scientific Monthly of October, 1915: 'The gen- 
eral course of the evolutionary process as applied to 
the principal classes of celestial bodies is thought to 
be fairly well known. The large irregular nebulae, 
such as the great nebula in the Orion, are thought to 
represent the earliest form of inorganic life known 
to us. The material appears to be in a chaotic state. 
There is no suggestion of order or system. The 
spectroscope shows that in many cases the substance 
consists of glowing gases or vapors, but whether 
they are glowing from the incandescence resulting 
from high temperature, or electrical condition, or 
otherwise, is unknown, though heat origin of their 
light is the simplest hypothesis now available. 
Whether such nebulae are originally hot or cold, we 
must believe that they are endowed with gravita- 
tional power, and that their molecules or particles 
are, or ultimately will be, in motion. It will happen 
that there are regions of greater density, or nuclei, 
here and there throughout the structure which will 
act as centers of condensation, drawing surrounding 
material into combination with them. The process 
of growth from nuclei originally small to volumes 
and masses ultimately stupendous must be slow at 
first, relatively more rapid after the masses have 
grown to moderate dimensions and the supplies of 
outlying material are still plentiful, and again slow 
after the supplies have been largely exhausted. By 
virtue of motions prevailing within the original nebu- 
lar structure or because of inrushing materials which 
strike central masses, not centrally but obliquely, 
low rotations of the condensed nebulous masses will 
occur. Stupendous quantities of heat will be gener- 



38 THE MAKING OF MATTER 

ated in the b^uilding-up process. This heat will radi- 
ate into space because the gaseous masses are highly 
rarefied and their radiating surfaces are large in pro- 
portion to the masses. With loss of heat the nebul- 
ous masses will contract in volume and gradually 
assume forms more spherical. When the forms be- 
come approximately spherical, the first stage of 
stellar life may be said to have been reached." 

"Speaking somewhat loosely, I think that we may 
say that the processes of evolution from an extended 
nebula to a condensed nebula and from the latter to a 
spherical star, are comparatively rapid, perhaps 
normally confined to a few tens of millions of years, 
but the farther we proceed in the development pro- 
cess, from the blue star to the yellow and possibly 
but not certainly on to the red star, the slower, is the 
progress made, for the radiating surface through 
which all energy from the interior must pass becomes 
smaller and smaller in proportion to the mass, and 
the connection currents which carry the heat from 
the interior to the surface must slow down in speed." 

There is now no doubt that our sun, which is one 
of the stars, came into being as described by the 
astronomer in the preceding paragraph. It is now 
believed that our earth and the other planets came 
into being by the condensation of glowing masses 
which were taken from the sun by the gravitational 
pull of some other star which once, probably billions 
of years ago, passed near the sun. The earth grew 
to its present size by pulling to itself the other mat- 
ter in and near its orbit around the sun. Its surface, 
once molten by the infall of the smaller bodies, grad- 
ually cooled, water formed and covered it, basins 
now filled by the oceans formed by the uneven con- 
traction of its rocky surface, and in the fullness of 
time the earliest simplest forms of living things came 
into existence. It is estimated by geologists that 



THE MAKING OF MATTER 39 

hundreds of millions of years have elapsed since the 
first living thing came into being. There are now 
living five hundred thousand species of plants and 
six hundred thousand species of animals, all made 
of matter similar in every way to that which com- 
poses the earth, the sun, and the stars. 



The Making of the Heavens 

Matter has been shown to be composed of atoms. 
These are made up of electrons, and they are aggre- 
gated mainly in those immense masses known as the 
suns, the planets and the stars. We know that the 
matter of earth and star is made up of the same ele- 
ments, oxygen, hydrogen, calcium, iron, etc. There 
are eighty-three known elements. As a matter of 
fact many of the elements of the earth have been 
positively identified in the glowing atmosphere of 
the sun and stars. This fact we have learned from 
the spectroscope. By the use of this instrument and 
the telescope, the largest of which magnifies 3000- 
fold the power of the eye to see distant objects, by 
the use of the photographic plate, which detects 
light far fainter than the eye can feel, we have dis- 
covered facts of great value to those who wish to 
understand the constitution of the universe. 

We have found the size and weight of the earth. 
The size we all know. The weight, which is six sex- 
tillion tons, is not so well known. It is about 5.5 
times that of a similar globe composed entirely of 
water. We have found the distance of the earth 
from the sun within certain limits of accuracy that 
cannot be disputed. This is about ninety-three mil- 
lion miles. With these, the weight and size of the 



The Planets on the Surface of the Sun, Showing the Relative 

Sizes of Sun and Planets. The black band represents a belt 

across the Sun, whose diameter is 865,000 miles. If the 

Sun were a hollow sphere it would hold more than a 

million spheres the size of the Earth. 

From Lessons in Physical Geography, ComjyiQht 1901, 1916, by Charles R. Dryer, 

American Book Company, Puhlisliers, 



4 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

earth and its distance from the sun, as our pound 
and yard stick, we have been able to weigh and 
measure the sun, moon, planets, stars and comets of 
the universe, and determine their distances apart, 
and we have been able to predict the coming events 
in the heavens with a high degree of accuracy. An 
eclipse of our sun and moon, even an eclipse of a 
moon on far away Jupiter, always comes within a 
few seconds as predicted. 

Our solar system is composed of a sun with eight 
planets revolving around it from west to east. These 
planets in the order that we meet them in going 
from the sun and the time of their revolutions 
around the sun are as follows: 

Mercury in 88 days, Venus in 225 days. Earth with 
one moon in 1 year. Mars with two moons in 1.9 
years, Jupiter with nine moons in 12 years, Saturn 
with its rings and nine moons in 29 V2 years, Uranus 
with four moons in 84 years, Neptune with one moon 
in 165 years. 

Mercury is but little more than one-third the 
earth's diameter. Venus is a little smaller than the 
earth. The diameter of Mars is a little more than 
one-half that of the earth. The diameter of Jupiter 
is eleven times that of the earth, Satnirn nine times 
and Uranus four times, and Neptune a little over 
four times. The four outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, 
Uranus and Neptune, contain 225 times as much 
material as the four inner planets. Mercury, Venus, 
Earth and Mars. Between Mars and Jupiter we 
iind what we call minor planets or asteroids, of 
which more than eight hundred have already been 
discovered. These asteroids revolve around the sun, 
some in one and three-fourth years, others in eight 
years, owing to their varying distances from the sun. 
The largest of them is not more than 450 miles in 
diameter, but it has on rare occasions been visible to 
the naked eye. Its name is Vesta. If all the mater- 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 5 

ial in the planetoids were gathered together and 
weighed the total mass would not be one three- 
thousandths as much as the earth. 

Mercury, Venus and Mars are mainly solid, but it 
is believed that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Nep- 
tune are in a fluid state. They will probably evolve 
into a viscous condition on their outer strata and 
then into solid and elastic bodies like our earth. 

All the planets and planetoids in revolving from 
west to east revolve so nearly in the same plane that 
if we had a great box whose diameter is sixty times 
the distance of the earth from the sun and whose 
thickness is equal to this distance it would hold the 
entire solar system. All the planets would stay 
within the box as they travel around the sun. It 
helps us to realize that our solar system is complete- 
ly isolated when we learn that the star nearest to us 
is at a distance from us equal to 275,000 times the 
distance of the earth from the sun. 

It is interesting to observe that our moon always 
keeps the same side of hemisphere turned toward us, 
a fact due to its rotating on its axis in exactly the 
same time required for its revolution around the 
earth. Our moon has what is called its "librations" 
which push its surface a degree or two more or less 
than a full revolution on its axis. There is some evi- 
dence that Mercury and Venus keep the same hemis- 
pheres always turned to the sun, their day being the 
same length as their year. 

One of the planets, Saturn, difl^ers from all the 
others in that it has a system of rings around it un- 
like anything that the telescope reveals elsewhere 
in the universe. The outer ring is about 175,000 
miles in diameter and all are very thin, probably 
not over 75 miles thick. There are several of the 
rings, one within the other like hoops of different 
sizes. Professor Keeler proved by means of the 
spectroscope that these rings are composed of myr- 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 



iads of tiny particles revolving about the planet like 
moons and all crovi^ded together so closely they 
seem like a continuous veil to the telescopic observer. 
Aside from the rings Saturn has nine moons, one of 
these, Mimas, only 50,000 miles from the planet, an- 
other, Phoebe, is 8,000,000 miles away. Saturn as 
seen in a high power telescope has exceeding beauty 
and interest. 

The following table presents the diameter, dis- 
tance from the sun, inclination of axis to plane of 
orbit, time of rotation, time of revolution, density 
compared with that of the earth, and number of 
moons of each of the planets: 







Distance 


Degree of 


Time of 


Time of 


Density 


^7. 


Planet 


Diameter 
in Miles 


from Sun 
inMillions 


Inclina- 
tion of 


Rotation 


Revolution 
Around 


Comp'd 
with 


?3 






of Miles 


Axis 


on Axis 


the Sun 


Water 


9 S 


Mercury 


3,020 


36 




88 Days 


88 Days 







Venus 


7,700 


67.2 




225 Days 


225 Days 


4.8 





Earth 


7,920 


93 


23.5 


23 hrs., 56 min. 


365 1-4 Days 


5.58 


1 


Mars 


4,230 


141.5 


25 


24hrs., 37 min. 


687 Days 


4.01 


2 


Jupiter 


87,000 


483.3 


Small 


9 hrs., 55 min. 


1 1 7-8 Yrs. 


1.33 


9 


Saturn 


73,000 


886 


25 


10 hrs., 13 min. 


29)^ Years 


.72 


9 


Uranus 


31,900 


1.782 


Large 


Unknown 


84 Years 


L22 


4 


Neptune 


34,800 


2,790 


Large 


Unknown 


165 Years 


1.11 


1 



Neptune, the outermost planet, is about thirty 
times as far from the sun as the earth is. It is always 
so far from the earth that it is never visible to the 
naked eye. Uranus, which is next to Neptune, is 
visible to the naked eye only when nearest to the 
earth and then under the very best conditions, and 
even- then it is exceedingly faint. Uranus was not 
discovered to be a planet till 1781. Neptune was not 
discovered till 1846. Because of these facts the an- 
cient Babylonians, from whom we derive our divis- 
ions of time into hours and minutes, knew only of 
five planets besides the earth. Because these and 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 



the sun and moon were the only ones of the heavenly 
bodies except the comets that changed their pos- 
itions, the powers of gods were ascribed to them. 
They were thought to control the destinies of men, 
and sacrifice and other forms of worship were made 
to them. A day was set by the ancients for worship- 
ing the sun (Sunday), a day of worshiping the moon 
(Monday), a day to each of the five planets, as Sat- 
urn day (Saturday). This made the worship of the 
sun and all the rest recur every seven days. Inscrip- 
tions found in many places in Babylonia and Assyria 
show that this custom was in vogue in those countries 
at the dawn of recorded human history. A similar 
custom prevailed in Egypt. 

The sun is a globe 865,000 miles in diameter. It 
weighs 744 times as much as all the planets, moons 
and asteroids combined. It contains ninety-nine 
and six-seventh percent, of all the material in the 
entire solar system. Its bulk is such that if it were 
a hollow shell more than a million earths could be 
put inside it and there would still be empty spaces 
between the earthen ballp. It weighs, however, 
only three hundred twenty-nine thousand times as 
much as the earth and its moon combined, because 
it is in a gaseous state due to its intense heat and 
weighs in proportion to its bulk only one-fourth as 
much as the earth. It revolves upon its axis as the 
eai-th does, but it takes twenty-five days instead of 
twenty-four hours. Its light traveling at the rate of 
186.000 miles per second takes eight minutes to 
reach us. We see the sun, therefore, not as it is at 
the moment we look, but as it was eight minutes 
earlier. The sun is made of the same materials as 
the earth, but they are all melted and above their 
boiling point and therefore in a state of gas or vapor. 

The earth has enough material in it to make by 
weight eighty-one moons like the one it has. 



8 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

Jupiter, the largest of the planets, is thirteen hund- 
red times as large as the earth, but it weighs only 
three hundred times as much. The distance of the 
planets apart may be realized from the facts men- 
tioned that despite their great size Uranus is only 
rarely visible to the naked eye and Neptune is far 
beyond our naked eye vision, and that traveling at 
the rate of a mile a minute we would require five 
thouand years to go from the earth to Neptune. We 
would reach Jupiter in seven hundred years at the 
same rate of traveling. Mars the planet next to the 
earth is fifty million miles away when nearest to us. 

It is now believed that all the material which com- 
poses the planets and their moons and the asteroids 
and comets was once a part of the sun, which had 
come into existence by the gathering together of the 
matter of a primal nebula similar to those now to be 
seen in many parts of space. The sun thus formed 
was, it is now believed, at some later stage "dis- 
rupted through the tidal forces produced by the 
close approach and passage of another star. The 
result was a secondary nebula, but one essentially 
unlike the primary. The secondary nebula was de- 
veloped in a plane and initially possessed a spiral 
form with the sun at its center. All of its parts 
moved with freedom in elliptic orbits. The nebula 
contained only a minute fraction of the solar matter, 
but was endowed by the passing star with a great 
rotational energy." 

"The sun is occasionally observed to shoot out 
streams of gas, known as solar prominences, to 
heights of nearly 300,000 miles, and at velocities 
ranging up to 300 miles per second. Such phenom- 
ena indicate the enormous elastic and explosive 
energy resident in the sun's interior, an expansive 
potency held in restraint by the equally prodigious 
power of the sun's gravity." 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 9 

"Supposing then that the ancestral sun was sub- 
jected to tidal disruption by the approach of another 
and possibly much more massive star, it remains to 
be seen how the nebula resulting from tidal disrup- 
tion can become the embryo of an orderly planetary 
system. If the matter were shot out from great 
depths in the sun by its normal expansive forces, the 
velocity of departure might rise high above the ob- 
served velocities of 300 miles per second. If 400 
miles or more, the gravitative attraction of the sun 
could then never reclaim that matter, because the 
decrease in the outward velocity due to the sun's 
attraction would never bring the velocity down to 
zero, and could therefore never reverse the motion 
of the escaping matter and bring it back to the sun." 

''But some or possibly all, of the matter of the ex- 
ploded sun may have had lesser velocities of escape 
and would consequently remain within its gravita- 
tive control. In so far as it was not deflected side- 
ways by some extraneous force, it would fall back 
in the sun as the water of a geyser falls back into its 
pool. But the gravitative pull of the passing star 
would serve as such an extraneous force, analogous 
to the wind which blows part of the geyser water, 
as it rises and falls, to one side of the basin. The 
matter shot out toward the passing star would be at- 
tracted sideways after it as the star receded into 
space. On falling back toward the sun it would 
consequently pass to one side and elliptical orbits of 
the separate particles would become established." 

''The matter which has converged into the planets 
would be that residue of the solar tidal disruption 
which did not pass beyond gravitative control and 
did not fall back into the body of the sun. This 
residue is only a very small fraction of the sun's 
mass, 1-745. It would appear, however, that the 
solar disruption was very great in order to give an 



10 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

axial revolution to the reaggregated matter forming 
the present sun, so that its equator should be, as ob- 
served, only seven degrees from the mean plane of 
all of the planetary orbits. The present revolution 
of the sun is probably due to the whirl produced 
during tidal disruption and not to an axial rotation 
belonging to the sun before the event took place." 

''This brings us to the final stage in the evolution 
of the planets according to the planetesimal hy- 
pothesis. In the arms of the spiral nebula were 
knots or nuclei of matter constituting the cores of 
the planets. Four small knots, the earth-moon knot 
being a double one, represented the beginnings of 
the four smaller inner planets. In the zone of the 
planetoids there was, however, no dominating nu- 
cleus, and they have therefore rem.ained to this day 
largely in the planetesimal stage. Four greater nu- 
clei beyond were the beginnings of the major plan- 
ets. Smaller nuclei associated with the larger 
marked the presence of satellites." 

"The orbits of the planetary nuclei and of the 
scattered planetesimal swarm were highly eccentric, 
having the form of a tangle of ellipses of all forms 
and sizes but lying in nearly a common plane and 
with a common direction of revolution about the 
central body. Collisions would inevitably occur at 
the crossing of the paths in the course of numberless 
revolutions and the nuclei would have suflScient 
mass and consequent gravitative power to retain 
the matter colliding with them. In this way, each 
planet would in the course of time clear up an orbital 
zone. An axial revolution would arise in the same 
direction as the orbital revolution, and the incorpor- 
ation of all the planetesimals would cause the eccen- 
tricities to cancel out, giving to the whole mass a 
nearly circular instead of a highly elliptical orbit. 
This would lead us to believe that the original nu- 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 11 

cleus was but a small part of the completed planet." 
'Indications point to the conclusion that the earth 
was molten at the completion of its growth. A 
molten state suggests a rapid earth growth due to 
an original clustering of the matter whose converg- 
ence built up the planet. Larger nuclei hundreds of 
miles in diameter and smaller ones falling into the 
earth led to a development of energy of impact suf- 
ficient to produce in the growing earth a molten 
state, at least in the outer portions. The earth kept 
growing at the same time by sweeping up large 
quantities of finer material, but the molten state 
suggests that the greater growth was due to the in- 
fall of the larger nuclei." (BarrelFs The Origin of 
the Earth.) 

In addition to the planets and their satellites and 
the asteroids there also revolve around the sun the 
comets and the meteors and the material that makes 
the zodiacal light. The latter is an illumination 
easily visible after sunset in the west and before sun- 
rise in the east and is caused by the scattering of the 
sun's rays by grains of dust and other small bodies 
of matter, each a' minute planet revolving around 
the sun. The material which makes the light is dis- 
tributed through a great volume of space somewhat 
the shape of a double convex lens whose center co- 
incides with the sun and whose edge extends out as 
far as the earth's orbit. The comets also pass around 
the sun, but in very elongated orbits, their tails 
pointing away from the sun, and when a comet 
comes near the earth it appears to be a star carrying 
a banner of light. The material making the meteors, 
which often suddenly flash across the sky leaving a 
transient trail of light, also revolves around the sun 
in elliptic orbits. Millions of these meteors strike 
against our atmosphere every twenty-four hours and 
are vaporized by the heat developed by the friction 



12 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

due to their tremendous velocity. A few of them are 
so large that they get through our atmosphere to 
the earth's surface and when found they are often as 
objects of great interest taken to the museums. It 
is interesting to know that of the 83 elements found 
on earth 25 of them have been found in meteorites. 
We have not found anything in the meteorites not 
found existing on earth by our chemists. 

There is, says Dr. Wallace Campbell of Lick Ob- 
servatory, '*a close connection between meteors and 
comets. It may be that all meteoric matter has come 
from the disintegration of comets. The head of a 
comet consists principally of separate small bodies. 
As repeated returns to the sun separates these bod- 
ies farther and farther apart, the comet of which 
they were once individual constituents will totally 
disappear, and when the earth is near the orbit of 




Comets' Tails Lag Beliind the Line Joining the Sun (S) and 

the Comets' Kiiclei. Orbital Motion is Canning the 

Nucleus of the Comet to the Right. 

Scientific Monthly. December, 1916- 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 13 



these individual bodies some of them will fall as 
meteors upon it." 

'*We know that there are certain nights of the 
year when we see a very large number of meteors 
which come from certain directions in space. There 
are five streams of these meteors and we know that 
they coincide with the orbits of five periodic comets 
that have ceased to appear. Clearly the cometary 
materials have been gradually scattered by the dis- 
integrating effect of the sun's attraction, and the 
separate particles were compelled to move in orbits 
differing slightly from each other and from the rec- 
ognized orbit of the comets. The meteoric collisions 
with the earth are such as to show that we are deal- 
ing with widely separated small masses moving in 
orbits nearly identical with each other." The peri- 
odic meteors are believed to be the debris of ancient 
but now disintegrated comets whose material has 
become distributed around their orbits. When the 
earth approaches near this orbit of scattered mater- 
ial meteors fall into it. 

The comets were once thought to be visitants from 
interstellar space to our solar system whose gravita- 
tional pull held some of them to be permanent mem- 
bers of our solar system, while others escaped to 
their homes among the stars. It is now believed 
probable that they have their origin in the scattered 
material within and beyond Neptune that yet re- 
mains of the nebulous material from which the sun 
and planets were composed. This material revolves 
around the sun and is being dragged through space 
by the sun just as the planets are. Individual bodies 
of this scatered material beyond Neptune are drawn 
together by gravitation and their repeated collisions 
will produce incandescent gas around a nucleus. 
This would revolve in its own orbit around the sun 
and the incandescent gas would be driven by light 



14 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

and heat and waves from the sun to become the 
flaming tail. It has been proved that waves of light 
repel any surface they strike. Though this push is 
exceedingly small it is sufficient to drive matter as 
tenuous and light as that in a comet's tail. Hydro- 
gen, nitrogen, sodium and other elements found on 
the earth have been proved by the spectroscope to 
be also in comets. 

There are four hundred comets whose orbits are 
known and whose coming may be predicted with 
certainty. There are sixty comets with periods of 
less than one hundred years. There are thirty of 
these whose farthest distance from the sun is now 
near the orbit of Jupiter, and from this fact they are 
called the Jupiter family. These have periods be- 
tween three and nine years. For a similar reason 
two of the comets are called Saturn comets, three 
Uranus comets, and six Neptune comets, one of the 
latter being Halley's, whose time of revolution is 
seventy-six years. All the Neptune comets have 
periods from sixty to eighty-one years. These com- 
ets revolve around the sun in a plane closely coincid- 
ing with that of the planets and most of them travel 
from west to east as the planets do. It is these short 
period planets that are being gradually destroyed 
by the sun's power to pull apart the constituent small 
bodies forming their heads. ^ With each visit near the 
sun the intensity of the comet's light is reduced and 
in the course of time the comet will cease to be. The 
long distance comets spend most of their time mov- 
ing slowly in the space far beyond Neptune but with- 
in the gravitational pull of the sun. The comets, all 
of them, are, therefore, as much members of the 
solar system as the earth is. They have originated 
in the outer parts of a rotating mass that has devel- 
oped into the solar system. Dr. Campbell gives the 
following account of their origin: (Sc. Monthly, 
Dec. 1916.) 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 15 

**We discover only a certain proportion of the 
comets which come close to the sun and the earth. 
The numbers which course through the planetary 
system and remain undiscovered by the observers 
on the earth must be exceedingly great. The supply 
of the planetary material in the remote outskirts of 
the planetary system must be enormous. This ma- 
terial is probably in the nature of remnants of the 
nebula or other mass of matter from which the sun, 
its planets and their moons developed. This idea is 
to a certain extent speculative, but that the cometary 
material is now out there in abundance we cannot 
doubt. Much of it naturally consists of matter in 
the solid state, and the sun's attraction at that great 
distance being almost zero, neighboring masses 
could slowly come together as a collection of small 
solid masses, such as seem to compose the nucleus of 
a comet. Such a nucleus could attract and attach to 
itself any dust particles and molecules coming within 
the sphere of its attraction. These might well, and 
probably would, include a collection of finely divided 
matter that had already been driven off in the tails 
of comets which in earlier ages had visited the sun. 
The materials thus collected would be attracted by 
the sun, a few of the collections would eventually 
pass comparatively close to the sun, a few of the 
latter would be discovered as comets and a part of 
the finely divided material contained in them would 
be driven off again as comet's tails into space, possi- 
bly to return many times in the bodies of comets 
coming later in the sun's neighborhood. Certain of 
the bodies would come so close to planets as to have 
their orbits tansformed from very long ellipses to 
very short ellipses. These comets would be disinte- 
grated and their materials be widely scattered. We 
have seen that the earth has collided with such ma- 
terials, and the earth is growing slowly, very slowly 



16 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

through the deposition of the remains upon its sur- 
face. Probably a little of the same material goes 
likewise to other planets of the solar system and 
adds slowly to their masses. However, an insignifi- 
cant proportion of the materials scattered in this 
manner through the solar system is thus accounted 
for, and the remainder doubtless revolves around 
the sun in ellipses, probably contributing its share 
of reflected sunlight to the faint glow near the sun 
known as the zodiacal light." 




Miiky Way in Constellation Cygnus Near the Star Gamma, 

pfiotogi-aphed by Prof. Barnard witli the 10-inch Bruce 

Camera of the Yerkes Observatory. 

Pojjiildf Scienct; Monthly, Scpfnnhfr, 1915. 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 17 

Our sun and its planets seem to be near the center 
of a universe of myriads of stars, of which only four 
thousand are visible to the naked eye. The stars are 
called ''fixed stars," for they are the same that stud- 
ded the heavens in the days of Homer, who describes 
a number of them. Job wrote of the Pleiades and 
the bands of Orion, which nb doubt was nearly as 
resplendent then as they are today. Even to primi- 
tive man hundreds of thousands of years ago these 
fixed stars were nearly the same in place and power 
as they are today. Over two thousand years ago 
Hipparchus, the Greek, made a catalog of a thous- 
and stars and described them, their position, bright- 
ness, color, etc. This has been preserved in the Ara- 
bian Almagest, and the description there made is 
nearly true of them today. Beyond these few 
thousand stars which meet our gaze every cloudless 
night, and which met the gaze of Homer and Job 
and primitive men, there are hundreds of millions of 
other stars within the range of our telescopes. 

Astronomers generally believe the number of stars 
to be not infinitely great, but of the order of two 
thousand millions, or approximately the same as the 
number of human beings now living. We know that 
each of these twinkling stars is a sun like that which 
warms our world. Many of these stars glow with a 
heat far more intense than our sun, which, it is in- 
teresting to note, is about 6,000 degrees centigrade 
and warms our earth with a constant heat that 
equals two calories a minute on each square centi- 
meter of its surface. We know the diameter of only 
a few of the stars and these vary from one million 
miles to ten million miles. As the sun's diameter is 
886,000 miles it must be one of the smallest stars. 

The total number of stars visible in our largest 
telescope is about seventy millions, but the number 
which can be recorded on photographic plates by 



18 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

means of long exposures with our largest reflecting 
telescope is many times as great. The result is ob- 
tained by photographing small squares of the night 
sky, carefully measured, and then counting the stars 
that the photographic plate show^ within some of 
the squares that appear to contain about an average 
number. The number thus obtained multiplied by 
the number of such squares in the entire heavens 
gives roughly the number of stars that are bright 
enough to be caught by the sensitive plate. This 
gives us more than a thousand millions. For every 
star that we can see with the unaided eye on a clear 
night, which is less than 5,000, the telescope and 
camera show 320,000 ; but no one knows that this in- 
cludes all or nearly all the stars. Every improve- 
ment of the telescope or photographic film shows us 
millions beyond those visible before. Still we do not 
know whether what the plate reveals is nearly the 
whole of the universe, or whether it is but a little 
spray, as it were, in an unthinkable ocean of stars. 
Abbott says on this interesting subject: 

"But why is it that there is a limit of numbers? 
Are we to suppose that there are no more stars and 
that if our telescopes were sufficiently powerful to 
perceive those of twenty-sixth magnitude we could 
see all, little, or big, that exist? Or are we rather 
to suppose that there is a limit of distance beyond 
which no star can be seen, however bright, so that 
though myriads without limit may exist, no single 
station in the universe is able to receive light from 
those beyond this limiting distance? It seems prob^ 
able that the latter hypothesis is the true one, al- 
though astronomers would not be unanimous in 
saying so. 

'In recent years one bit after another of evidence 
has come out, tending to show that there is a light- 
absorbing medium in space. It is very rare. Dr. L. 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 19 

V. King has recently computed that the most prob- 
able measure of its effect on star brightness would 
be satisfied by assuming a density of the supposed 
absorbing medium in space less than one trillionth 
part of that of the air. But even at this rate, space is 
so vast that the quantity of the supposed medium 
within a sphere whose radius is the average distance 
of the nearest star, (a Centauri) is about 10,000 
times the mass of the sun, which is startling if true." 

''These figures are of course uncertain. But that 
there is in space here a particle, there another, yon- 
der a hydrogen molecule, beyond still others, and 
that in the well-nigh endless path extending to stars 
of the twenty-sixth magnitude, whose light traveling 
186,000 miles per second takes tens of thousands of 
years to travel to us, there would be found enough 
such particles to bar the doors of light, as a fog 
shuts out the sun — this seems reasonable." 

The vastness of even the area studded with stars 
within the range of our unaided vision may be 
judged from the fact that the nearest star to us. 
Alpha Centauri, is twenty-five trillion miles away 
(25,000,000,000,000.) Traveling at the rate of a 
mile a minute, one would require fifty million years 
to go from the earth to this nearest of the stars. The 
distance traveled by light going 186,000 miles a sec- 
ond in 365 days is about six million million miles. 
This is called a light year. At this rate of speed it 
would require four and a half years for light to 
travel from our nearest star to us. As light travels 
ninety million miles from the earth to the sun in 
eight minutes and from the sun to its most distant 
planet, Neptune, in four and a half hours, we may 
form a faint conception of the enormous distance it 
would travel in four and a half years in going from 
earth to the star nearest to it. It will also aid in 
getting a conception of the interstellar distances to 



20 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

know the fact that the average distance of a third 
magnitude star from the earth is four million times 
the sun's distance from the earth. These third mag- 
nitude stars are clearly seen by the naked eye, as 
are also those of fourth, fifth, and sixth magnitudes. 
The average distance between neighboring stars is 
seven or eight light years. The stars seen by the aid 
of the telescope are at distances from us so large 
that figures stating them are beyond comprehen- 
sion. 

As seen through our most powerful telescopes 
they seem to be mere points of light. The vast ma- 
jority of stars are so far away from the earth that it 
takes eight thousand years or more for light to come 
from them to the earth. Abbot says of the star 
measurements: 

''Even the length of a diameter of the earth is too 
small a base line from which to triangulate for the 
distances of the stars. Astronomers use the diameter 
of the earth's orbit round the sun, 186,000,000 miles, 
for this. Astronomers also take advantage of the 
fact that very faint stars are usually much farther 
away (though not invariably so) than bright ones. 
Thus it comes about that if photographs of a bright 
star are made with the same telescope at two dates 
six months apart, and exact measurements of the 
distance of the bright star from its faint neighbors 
are made on both photographs, a slight displacement 
of the bright star will often be found to have 
occurred. The angular measure of displacement 
gives the vertical angle of the isosceles triangle of 
which the base line is the diameter of the earth's or- 
bit, and from these data the star's distance is easily 
found. Seen from the nearest star, A Centauri, the 
ladius of the earth's orbit, 93,000,000 miles subtends 
an angle of only 0.75 seconds. This is called the 
stars' parallax," 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 21 

''The distances of less than 1,000 different stars 
have been measured. It is a slow, tedious work, 
often disappointing. A Centauri, the nearest star, 
except the sun, is at 25,000,000,000,000 miles, while 
the sun is at only 93,000,000 miles." 

''When a measurement indicates that a star is at 
2,000,000,000,000,000 miles or more (parallax 0.01 
seconds) it is the same as saying that the star is too 
far away for its distance to be determined. It may 
be ten or a hundred times as far as the measurements 
indicate. This is about the average distance of the 
faintest stars visible to the naked eye. The great 
majority of telescopic stars lie beyond this distance." 

There is no good reason to doubt that many of 
the stars have their planets and satellites just as our 
sun, but they are at distances from us so great that 
a planet of even the nearest star could not be seen 
by our best telescopes. It may be that there are mil- 
lions of planets like our world and if so it seems 
probable that some of them are inhabited by living 
beings such as we find on earth. Many of these stars 
are larger than our sun. Sirius, the brightest star 
in the heavens, though it is nine light years distance 
from us, is three times as large as the sun. One of 
the stars in the constellation Pegasus is eleven times 
as large as the sun. The largest measured star is 
Canopus, which is fifty-one times as large as the sun. 
Nor is our sun the hottest of the stars. Remarkable 
as it may seem, astronomers are able to estimate the 
probable temperature of the stars because of the 
fact that there is a relation between temperature 
and the distribution of light in the spectrum. Our 
sun's surface, as has been stated, is thought to be at 
least 6,000 degrees Centigrade (10,800 Fahrenheit) 
above the melting point of ice. Some stars appear 
to have a temperature of 9,000 degrees Centigrade 
while others have temperatures probably as low as 



22 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

3,000 degrees. Abbot tells us that we have*' suc- 
ceeded in measuring the heat caused by the rays of 
the stars so faint that the eye can scarcely see them. 
For this purpose the rays were collected by a con- 
cave mirror of three feet diameter and focussed on 
the surface of a very delicate electric thermopile. 
This instrument acts on the principle that a differ- 
ence of temperature between the junction of two 
metals made up into a closed wire circuit produces 
an electric current. The apparatus used was so deli- 
cate that if the experiment could be made in a 
vacuum the heat from the rays of a candle at 53 
miles could be observed." 

The stars are crowded towards the plane of the 
Milky Way. Looking from our position near the 
center toward the rim of this vast circular plate of 
space, that is, toward the region of the Milky Way, 
we find in our telescope myriads of stars, and the 
Milky Way itself in powerful telescopes is resolved 
into a throng of separate stars. Looking in a line 
perpendicular to the plane of the Milky Way, and 
toward the axis of the circular plate of space, we 
find far fewer stars, and apparently all of them near 
enough to be descried by our telescopes. Our sun 
and its planets seem to be nearly the center of the 
circular plate of space that contains almost all the 
stars. 

The universe of stars — our stellar system — is be- 
lieved by the students of the subject, all but unani- 
mously, to occupy a limited volume of space that is 
somewhat the shape of a very flat pocket watch, or 
more strictly, a much flattened spheroid. However, 
it is not intended to convey the impression that the 
boundaries of the stellar system are sharply defined 
or that the stars are uniformly distributed through- 
out the spheroid, and all at once, at the surface of 
the spheroid, cease to exist, but only that the stars 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 23 

are more or less irregularly distributed throughout 
a volume of space roughly spheroidal in form, and 
that the thinning out of the stars near the confines 
of the system may be quite gradual and irregular. 
The equatorial plane of the spheroid is coincident 
with the central plane of the Milky Way. We see 
the Milky Way as a bright band encircling the sky 
because in looking toward the Milky Way we are 
looking out through the greatest depth of stars. The 
solar system is believed to be somewhere near the 
center of the stellar system known to us. 

The portion of space in which stars are known to 
exist is estimated to be 3,000 light-years (18 quad- 
rillion miles) in thickness, that is in a direction per- 
pendicular to the plane of the Milky Way, while the 
diameter of the spheroid, that is, the plane of the 
Milky Way, is probably ten times that distance. 

Joseph Barrill says: ''To bring down the dimen- 
sions of the universe to finite comprehension, we 
must divide the scale of nature by a hundred million. 
Then the earth would be represented by a pebble 
half an inch in diameter, circling once a year about 
a sun 4.5 feet in diameter, at a distance of 500 feet. 
The nearest star, A. Centauri, would on this scale be 
seen as two spheres revolving about each other at a 
distance apart equal to two miles, and each compar- 
able in size to the sun. This double star would be 
situated at a distance of about 25,000 miles from 
our planetary system with the sun, but the other 
stars in this part of the stellar system would be 
separated from each other on the average by more 
than twice this distance. The Galaxy or Milky Way 
is the cloudlike zone of faint stars which extends as 
a belt around the sky. The stars in it appear faint 
and close together because of their remoteness. 
They seem to constitute the outer zone of our stellar 
system, and its dimensions are only vaguely known. 



24 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

On this diminutive scale, dividing the scale of nature 
by a hundred million, the Milky Way might b^ found 
to be encompassed by a circle of a hundred million 
miles diameter, or it might be more or less." 

Though the stars are called ''fixed" stars, it is 
nevertheless true that each of them is moving 
through space at great speed with what is called its 
''proper motion." By the aid of the spectroscope 
and photographic plate, we are able to determine 
the speed and direction of every star. The average 
speed of the stars is about sixteen miles a second. 
We know, for instance, that our sun, dragging its 
family of planets with it, is moving through space 
at a speed of twelve miles and a half a second. Some 
of the stars are moving at a rate of two hundred 
miles a second. As those which are supposed to be 
the oldest — the red ones — move the faster, it seems 
that stars fall through space under the pull of gravi- 
tation and increase their speed with age. This is a 
recent discovery that the velocity of a star depends 
upon its class of spectrum, those showing most red 
being the oldest and fastest. The irregular nebulae 
seem to be at rest, the blue stars, which have only 
hydrogen and helium, have the lowest velocities, 
while the velocities increase as we pass to the yellow 
and the red stars. 

Not only is the speed of the stars moving through 
space determined, but the directions of their move- 
ments are also known. We know that we are being 
carried by the sun toward the star Vega in the con- 
stellation Lyra, which will be our North star twelve 
thousand years hence. The sun's direction of move- 
ment is approximately in a line from Sirius to Vega, 
and of course v/e on the earth are traveling with the 
sun. Vega is apparently moving toward the sun. Of 
the seven stars forming the "big dipper" in our 
northern sky, five are moving in one direction while 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 25 

the other two have a very different course. All 
seven of them, hov^ever, are moving at nearly the 
same speed. Two vast streams of stars that lie in 
the plane of the Milky Way have been discovered to 
be moving in opposite directions. One toward a 
point in the northern edge of Orion in the Milky 
Way and the other exactly opposite to this. This 
discovery made by Kapteyn in 1904 has been con- 
firmed by all investigations since. 

Thus the stars have their courses, their ''proper 
motions,'' and they move in various directions. A 
great many of the stars are double stars that revolve 
around a common center of gravity and move on- 
ward through space together, and there are some 
clusters of stars that all move in the same direction. 

Abbot in the Smithsonian Report (1916) says: 
"The greatest conception in regard to star grouping 
is that of "star streaming" recently worked out by 
Kapteyn and by Eddington of the University of Cam- 
bridge, England. They find that when the proper 
motions of the stars are cleared of the effects of 
solar motion the remaining so-called "peculiar mo- 
tions" of the individual stars, while they go to some 
extent at random, plainly indicate the governing in- 
fluence of two great streams moving oppositely. If 
we could collect all the stars at one point and endow 
each of them with its "peculiar motion" just as it 
has been observed, then at the end of a century the 
stars would have stretched out, not into a sphere but 
into an ellipsoid, owing to the influence of the two 
star streams. This grand phenomenon is attracting 
deep attention from astronomers today, and will 
undoubtedly play a great part in future studies. All 
stars including our sun move, each with his own rate 
and direction, so that at the end of a century the con- 
figuration of the heavens is not quite the same as at 
its beginning. These "proper motions" range from 



26 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

870 seconds of arc per century down. (A second of 
arc is about the angular width of a telegraph wire 
as seen at a distance of half a mile.) The vast ma- 
jority of stars have a less proper motion than 20 sec- 
onds per century." 

'Troper motions are observed as angles and can- 
not be expressed in miles per second without other 
information. We see only the component of motion 
at right angles to the line from the earth to the star. 
If a star is coming directly toward us, it has no 
proper motion, though its real speed may be very 
great. Near stars have greater average proper 
motions than distant ones, just as men walking on 
the other side of the street apparently outdistance 
those a block away. Two things besides proper 
motion are therefore needed to determine the real 
motion of a star, namely, its distance and the angle 
its real motion makes to the line of sight.'^ 

''Fortunately, the spectroscope can help in this 
matter. Although, as stated above, the chemical 
elements are discovered in stars by the reversal of 
their spectrum lines, careful measurements show 
that the position of the stellar lines are slightly 
shifted, either toward the red or toward the violet, 
with respect to the bright lines of the comparison 
spectrum of metal." ■ 

''Light travels by waves. Violet light has more 
waves per second than red. If a star is approaching, 
its light seems to have more waves per second be- 
cause the star's motion is added to that of light, and 
hence all the spectrum lines are shifted toward the 
violet. The lines are shifted toward the red for stars 
that are receding. From the amount of shift the act- 
ual rate of approach or recession of the star may be 
found. Naturally, a small correction must be made 
for the motion of the earth on its axis and its motion 
round the sun. We then have the actual rate of 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 27 

motion of the star to or from the sun." 

''Many stars are found to be of variable bright- 
ness. It has been shown lately by the Smithsonian 
observers that even the sun is variable through a 
range of about ten per cent. But most of the known 
variable stars vary much more widely than this. The 
cause of the variation is now known to be, in many 
but not all cases, the presence of a companion star 
so near the primary star as to be indistinguishable 
by the telescope, but discoverable by spectroscopic 
studies of motion in the line of sight. As the two 
stars revolve about their common center of gravity 
they alternately eclipse each other as seen from the 
earth. Of course the eclipse may be either total or 
partial, according to the relative sizes of the two 
stars and the inclination of their orbit to our line of 
sight. By a careful study of the variation of bright- 
ness of these objects it is possible to fix the period of 
revolution, the relative size of the two stars, the in- 
clination of their orbit, and other data.'' 

"The spectroscope shows, by noting the periodic 
variability of velocities of stars in the line of sight, 
that about one-fourth of all the visible stars are 
really double or multiple, though apparently single 
to the telescope. So, for instance, Campbell found 
that the polar star is probably triple. In cases 
where the stars are so wide apart that the telescope 
can perceive them as separated, not only can the 
distance of the stars from each other and from the 
earth be determined, but also the combined mass of 
the pair in terms of the mass of the sun. Where 
there is no visible separation, the mass can be deter- 
mined for some cases in which the plane of the orbit 
is known. For A Centauri, the nearest star to the 
sun, there is visible separation of two components, 
which revolve in 81 years. The total mass is twice 
that of the sun, and, the two components being near- 



28 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

ly equal, each is of about the sun's mass. The two 
are separated about 23.6 times as far as the earth is 
from the sun. The periods of revolution of double 
stars thus far determined spectroscopically range 
from 41/2 hours to 90 years. From the photometric 
study of eclipsing binary stars it has been shown by 
Roberts and by Russell that the average densities of 
these stars is small, no more than one-eighth of that 
of the sun. On this and other grounds astronomers 
are of the opinion that stars are generally less dense 
than the sun." 

The double stars, the ''binary star system" just 
alluded to, come into existence by a process which 
Campbell has described as follows: "Great masses, 
masses larger on the average than our sun, compos- 
inv highly attenuated stars, have divided each into 
two masses to form many or most of our double stars. 
The two component stars would in such case at first 
revolve around each other with their surfaces almost 
or quite in contact. Tidal forces would gradually 
cause the bodies to move on orbits of large and 
larger size with correspondingly longer periods of 
revolution, and the orbits would become constantly 
more ecentric. While these processes were under 
way the component bodies would be radiating heat 
and getting smaller and their spectra would be 
changing into the more advanced type. We cannot 
watch such changes as they occur, but we can, I 
think, find abundant illustrations of these processes 
in the double stars. I have given reasons for believ- 
ing that one star in every two and a half as a mini- 
mum proportion is not the single star which it ap- 
pears to be to the eye or the telescope, but is a 
system of two or more suns in mutual revolution. 
The formation of double stars, therefore, is not a 
sporadic process; it is one of the straightforward re- 
sults of the evolutionary process." (Sc. Monthly, 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 29 

Dec. 1915) 

Sooner or later every star grows dim with age. 
Its light goes out and a crust forms on its surface. 
Because of this there are immense dark bodies, mil- 
lions of them, hurtling through space and there is 
reason to believe that there are more of these ex- 
tinct stars than of shining ones. Arrhenius, one of 
the greatest of living scientists, estimates that there 
are a hundred times as many. Newcomb and Kelvin 
believed that the larger part of matter in the uni- 
verse is invisible already. A number of the luminous 
stars have dark companions which travel with them 
and sometimes eclipse them from our view by pass- 
ing between them and us. Sometimes one of these 
immense dark bodies enters an area in which there 
are small masses of matter scattered throughout 
millions of miles, and then, because these small 
masses fall in showers, rushing at high velocity on 
its crust, the dark body will become incandescent 
with surface heat and glow as a star for many 
months. 

This is one cause, perhaps the most frequent, 
of the appearance of the new stars, which sudden- 
ly flare up in the heavens, as a phenomenon 
which has often occurred. One other cause of these 
new stars is the collision of two of the extinct stars, 
a catastrophe that would end the existence of both 
bodies by dispersing their contained matter and 
making a nebula scattered throughout many mil- 
lions of miles of space. This space would glow 
brightly for awhile, but as the scattered particles 
would begin at once to radiate their heat and soon 
grow cold, the light would disappear. The two stars 
would thus be converted into a luminous gaseous 
nebula which would in millions of years evolve into 
stars and then would shine for ages and in course of 
time grow cold and dark. Another cause is the ex- 



30 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

plosion of a star on which a crust has formed. The 
near approach to each other of two stars would 
cause the explosion of both of them. Twenty-nine 
of these new stars, or temporary stars, as they are 
sometimes called, have appeared since 1500 A. D. 
They blaze out and become prominent objects in the 
heavens, and then fade away and disappear. One 
of them in 1752 grew to be so brilliant in five days 
after it was observed that it could be seen in full 
daylight. After three weeks it began to decline and 
in two years it utterly disappeared. In 1604 a new 
star appeared and attained a brightness equal to 
Jupiter. It disappeared entirely in fifteen months. 
In February, 1901, one appeared in Perseus and in 
two days became the brightest stars in the northern 
heavens, but after that it rapidly decreased in 
brightness till it reached the twelfth magnitude. It 
then became constant in its brightness, and has re- 
mained so up to the present time. Nineteen new 
stars have appeared since 1886, the photographic 
dry plate applied systematically to the heavens aid- 
ing in discovering them. 

Most of the stars, perhaps three-fourths of them, 
are almost unchanging in their brightness from year 
to year. There have been already discovered about 
forty-five hundred that are variable, their brightness 
fluctuating, some in short periods and others in long 
periods, some varying regularly and others irregu- 
larly. Algol, a very beautiful star in the constella- 
tion Perseus, is one of a hundred and fifty variables 
already found that have short regular periods of 
variations in brightness. This star, Algol, once in a 
period of 2 days, 20 hours and 49 minutes suffers a 
partial eclipse and fades from a second magnitude 
star to nearly a fourth magnitude star. The eclipse 
lasts nearly thirteen hours. It is due to a dark body^ 
an invisible companion nearly as large as Algol, re- 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 31 

volving around it and passing between us and it. A 
similar condition is probably the cause of all the 
regular variables, while the probable cause of the 
irregular variables is an explosion that throws burn- 
ing masses far above the surface, as we see happen 
in a small way on the surface of our sun. We see 
on our sun in periods of about eleven years spots 
which are darker regions on the surface accompan- 
ied by ridges and crests of specially luminous matter 
which rise like mountains into its atmosphere. 
These latter are called faculae. The sunspots which 
occur on the sun at intervals of about eleven years 
are immense whirlpools, some of them a hundred 
thousand miles in diameter, in which currents of 
burning gases are rushing. Periodical changes simi- 
lar to these are probably found in the stars. 

With the telecope we find in the heavens no less 
than 450,000 nebulae, cloudlike masses of glowing 
matter. Many of these show spir^-l forms. It has 
been suggested that some of these may be leading 
to the formation of suns and planets that will be- 
come similar to our solar system. If this be so, we 
are witnessing in the spirals of these nebulae the 
birth of stars and planets. The spectroscope shows 
that the matter of these spiral nebulae, as well as 
the matter of the stars, contains some of the chemic- 
al elements found on our earth. 

Nebulae were formerly supposed to consist entire- 
ly of incandescent gases, either of ordinary matter 
or of matter before the stage in which it is formed 
into atoms of the elements. It is possible that this 
is true of some of them, but many of them are now 
known to consist of some solid mater, and it may be 
that their incandescence is owing to the friction and 
continual collision of small solid masses formed in 
space out of this scattered world-stuff, all of which 
is drawn into a great swarm by gravitation. The 



32 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 




From Photograph in Comstock's Astronomy. — D. Appleton & Co. 

The nebula in the constellation Andromeda seen above is 
in width five hundred thousand times the distance of the earth 
from the sun. It would require eight years for light to travel 
across it traveling as it does, at the rate of eleven million miles 
a minute. It is barely visibie to the naked eye, to which it 
appears to be a small white glowingmass; but as seen through 
a telescope it is a vast luminous whirlpool of glowing matter 
in which certain places are thickened and rounded. We can 
see a large central mass and other thickened rounded places of 
smaller size, which by gravitation must draw into themselves 
all the matter now in the spaces between them. This matter 
in the spaces between would aggregate into small bodies, 
planetesimals, which would fall into the large central mass 
or into the other large masses. The central mass would thus 
become a sun^as the other large masses would become other 
suns. Such was the origin of our sun 

Tiie light from this nebula broken by the spectroscope 
shows that the matter of the nebula is the same as that found 
in our sun and earth, hydrogen, helium, «tc. 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 33 

scattered world-stuff may be molecules pushed off 
the stars by the radiant energy of heat or it may 
have been scattered into space by the collision of 
stars. 

Immense numbers of small cold bodies brought 
together in a swarm by gravitation would by their 
continual collisions convert parts of their surfaces 
into hot vapor, which would be continually renewed. 
Hence the nebulae, ''instead of being diffused clouds 
of intensely heated gas, are swarms of solid meteor- 
ites, which were originally cold but are heated by 
collisions and thus give off a continual supply of in- 
candescent vapor." 

The theory that the dispersed matter in space 
gravitates toward a center and forms the spiral 
nebulae and that these in turn become stars and 
solar systems derives some support from the knot- 
like condensations which appear in nebulae, as for 
instance, in the famous white nebula in Andromeda, 
which can be seen by the naked eye. The enormous 
size of this and other nebulae leads, however, to the 
view that perhaps we see in them other universes of 
stars so far away as to be unresolvable. Sir William 
Herschel proposed this so-called Island Universe 
theory. The spectroscope proves that nebulous mat- 
ter is the same as that in the stars, which, as we have 
seen, is the same as that of which the earth is made. 

The spectroscope enables us to detect the least 
quantity of any element burning as a gas flame, for 
every element burning as a gas flame emits rays of 
light that are split by the spectroscope into -certain 
series of lines. Sodium has its series and so each of 
the eighty-three elements has its series of lines by 
which it may always be recognized. The light from 
the sun and the stars passing through a spectro- 
scope tells us what elements are there with as much 
certainty as if their surfaces could be reached by 



34 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

our hands. As already stated a stai' is seen in(?roly 
as a point of lig-ht through our largest telescopes, 
but in passing through the prism of the spectroscope 
the ray of. light is spread out as colors which are 
crossed by bright lines. 

C. G. Abbott of the astrophysical observatory of 
the Smithsonian Institution tells how we get "news 
from the stars" by means of the spectroscope: 

''Light is the messenger that brings the news. The 
message is in cipher, very long, faint, and hard to 
read. It tells of the materials, classifications, tem- 
perature, motions, distance, grouping, brightness, 
variability, mass, size, and number of stars. 

''Starlight collected by a telescope is passed 
through a spectroscope. This forms a narrow band, 
called the spectrum, violet at one end, red at the 
other. A photograph of the spectrum is made and 
for most stars this shows the colors crossed by dark 
lines. 

"Suppose an electric arc is made to play between 
iron poles and its light is sent through the spectro- 
scope. Instead of a bright continuous spectrum 
with dark lines, as given by a star, there appears its 
exact opposite — a very faint spectrum crossed by 
bright lines, especially numerous where the green 
occurs in the spectrum of starlight. 

"Matched together, one spectrum above the other, 
the bright iron lines occur where the dark lines cross 
the star spectrum. So unmistakably is one the re- 
versal of the other that the coincidence seems to 
give proof of the presence of iron in the star. Prob- 
ability becomes assurance when it is known that un- 
der some circumstances iron vapor can produce dark 
lines on bright spectrum ground, just as usually 
found in starlight, and that some stars on the other 
hand, show bright lines on a faint spectrum back- 
ground. 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 35 

"Hydrogen, helium, oxygen, calcium, and many 
other elements are similarly shown to exist in the 
stars by the spectroscopic examination of starlight. 
But not all the stars show all these elements. Great 
differences are found in the stellar spectra, and 
stars are classified accordingly." 

The fundamental principles of the wonderful art 
of spectroscopy were discovered in 1859 by a Ger- 
man physicist, Kirchoff. From these we know that 
a light from a solid body, which is liquid or con- 
densed gas heated to incandescence, passed through 
a spectroscope makes a band of light continuous 
from red at one end and violet at the other, but if 
this light pass through cooler gas before entering 
the spectroscope we see a spectrum consisting of 
dark lines on the bright ground, each element mak- 
ing its own grouping of these dark lines. Light from 
incandescent sodium gas is recognized when we see 
two orange bright lines. We know also that the 
cooler vapors around a burning body ''have the 
power of absorbing exactly those rays from the hot- 
ter inner source which the vapors by themselves 
would emit to form bright lines." From these prin- 
ciples we have a perfectly sure method of determin- 
ing the elements found in a glowing body, no matter 
how far from the spectroscope. Thus it is that we 
can say that we know that certain nebulae consist 
of luminous gases in which hydrogeu and helium 
predominate. We know that those stars that give 
a spectra of both continuous colors and bright lines 
have a condensed central part which is surrounded 
by a hot atmosphere. 

All the stars above the eighth magnitude are now 
being classified according to their spectra, which 
by disclosing what elements predominate informs us 
Avhether the star be young or old. The helium stars, 
those which show mainly helium spectra, are young- 



36 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

est and are class B, and the hydrogen stars, a little 
older, are class A. These two young stars shine with 
bluish-white light. In class F the lines indicating 
the presence of metals are numerous. These stars 
are not so blue as classes A and B. The yellow stars 
begin with class G. Here we find large numbers of 
metallic lines and very few hydrogen lines. The 
calcium bands are wide and bright. The yellow and 
slightly reddish stars are in class K and have still 
more metallic lines in their spectrum. After class K 
comes the decidedly red stars, the oldest, and here 
we find the most metallic lines. Class N contains 
extremely red stars in which we find metals and 
carbon conspicuous and the temperature low as com- 
pared with the young stars. They are very faint 
and only a few of them are visible to the naked eye. 
Bodies older than the N stars emit no light and are 
in the condition of the earth and other planets. All 
the stars will ultimately become dark and unshining 
bodies. 

It is interesting to note that the two streams of 
stars, which, as we have noted, Kapteyn discovered 
in 1904, contain stars of different ages. One stream 
''is rich in the early blue stars, less rich relatively in 
yellow stars, and poor in red stars, whereas the other 
stream is very poor in early blue stars, rich in yel- 
lows, and relatively very rich in reds. His interpre- 
tation is that stream-one stars are effectively young- 
er than the stream-two stars on the whole. Stream- 
one still abounds in youthful stars; they grow older 
and the yellow and red stars will then predominate. 
Stream-two abounds in stars which were once young, 
but are now middle-aged and old." 

Says Dr. W. W. Campbell of Lick Observatory in 
the Scientific Monthly of October, 1915: "The gen- 
eral course of the evolutionary process as applied to 
the principal classes of celestial bodies is thought to 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 37 

be fairly well known. The large irregular nebulae, 
such as the great nebula in the Orion, are thought 
to represent the earliest form of inorganic life known 
to us. The material appears to be in a chaotic state. 
There is no suggestion of order or system. The 
spectroscope shows that in many cases the substance 
consists of glowing gases or vapors, but whether 
they are glowing from the incandescence resulting 
from high temperature, or electrical condition, or 
otherwise, is unknown, though heat origin of their 
light is the simplest hypothesis now available. 
Whether such nebulae are originally hot or cold, we 
must believe that they are endowed with gravita- 
tional power, and that their molecules or particles 
are, or ultimately will be, in motion. It will happen 
that there are regions of greater density, or nuclei, 
here and there throughout the structure which will 
act as centers of condensation, drawing surround- 
ing material into combination with them. The pro- 
cess of growth from nuclei originally small to vol- 
umes and masses ultimately stupendous must be 
slow at first, relatively more rapid after the masses 
have grown to moderate dimensions and the supplies 
of outlying material are still plentiful, and again 
slow after the supplies have been largely exhausted. 
By virtue of motions prevailing within the original 
nebular structure or because of inrushing materials 
which strike central masses, not centrally but ob- 
liquely, low rotations of the condensed nebulous 
masses will occur. Stupendous quantities of heat 
will be generated in the building-up process. This 
heat will radiate into space because the gaseous 
masses are highly rarefied and their radiating sur- 
faces are large in proportion to the masses. With 
loss of heat the nebulous masses will contract in vol- 
ume and gradually assume forms more spherical. 
When the forms become approximately spherical. 



38 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

the first stage of stellar life may be said to have been 
reached. 

''Speaking somewhat loosely, I think that we may 
say that the processes of evolution from an extended 
nebula to a condensed nebula and from the latter to 
a spherical star, are comparatively rapid, perhaps 
normally confined to a few tens of millions of years, 
but the farther we proceed in the development pro- 
cess, from the blue star to the yellow and possibly 
but not certainly on to the red star, the slower is the 
progress made, for the radiating surface through 
which all energy from the interior must pass be- 
comes smaller and smaller in proportion to the mass, 
and the connection currents which carry the heat 
from the interior to the surface must slow down in 
speed. 

''The quantity of heat in our sun, now existing as 
heat, would suffice to maintain its present rate of 
overflow only a few thousands of years. The heat 
generated in the process of the sun's shrinking un- 
der gravity, however, is so extensive as to maintain 
the supply during millions of years to come. Helm- 
holtz has shown that the reduction of the sun's ra- 
dius at the rate of forty-five meters per year would 
generate as much heat within the sun as is now radi- 
ated. This rate of shrinking is so slow that our most 
refined instruments could not detect a change in the 
solar diameter until after the lapse of 4,000 or 5,000 
years. Again there are reasons for suspecting that 
the processes of evolution in our sun, and in other 
stars as well, may be enormously prolonged through 
the influence of energy within the atoms or mole- 
cules of matter composing them. The sub-atomic 
forces residing in the radio-active elements r^^pre- 
sent the most condensed form of energy of which 
we have any conception. It is believed that sub- 
atomic energy in a mass of radium is at least a mil- 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 39 

lion-fold greater than the energy representc^d in the 
combustion, or rather chemical transformation, of 
any ordinary substance having the same mass. These 
radio-active forces are released with extreme slow- 
ness in the form of heat or the equivalent, and if 
these substances exist moderately in the sun and 
stars, as they do in the earth, they may well be im- 
portant factors in prolonging the lives of these 
bodies." 

Except for their immense dimensions the various 
nebulae in space could come from a collision of two 
stars. This would scatter their material in direc- 
tions opposite to the point of the contact and form 
an elongated nebula. Such nebulae are seen. They 
could also come from an explosion of suns traveling 
near each other, the gravitation of such immense 
masses when within a short distance of each other 
being a force so powerful as to overcome cohesion 
and tear asunder all the atoms. This would scatter 
the matter in all directions. They could also come as 
a slow aggregation into small bodies of electrified 
corpuscles driven from the surface of the stars by 
the radiant energy of heat and light. These electri- 
fied corpuscles are called ''cosmical dust." The 
aurora borealis that lights up the skies of the polar 
regions of the earth with brilliant waving streamers 
of red or green is caused by these showers of electri- 
fied corpuscles constantly coming from the sun and 
striking the rarefied gases of the upper atmosphere. 
The lines of magnetic force about the earth deflect 
these electrical particles of matter toward the poles. 
This ''cosmical dust" comes together in space to form 
tiny bits of ordinary matter, which, under the in- 
fluence of gravitation, draw together to form the 
swarms of small bodies colliding and producing the 
incandescent vapor and other phenomena of a neb- 
ula, which in time becomes a star and its planets. 



40 THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 

In this way an immanent God is creating the heavens 
and the earth. 

All parts of the heavens and the earth are linked 
together as one, for any change made in one part 
affects all the other parts. Not only do large masses, 
as earth and sun, affect each other, but the least 
change in an atom affects the whole universe. The 
light of a candle on the earth starts waves of energy 
that beat against distant stars and change conditions 
on the earth for all future time. This is the princi- 
ple known as the conservation of energy. It could 
as well be called the immortality or continuity of 
energy. If matter disappear from one form it is be- 
cause its contained energy has become a part of 
some other form. Each form is but a transient res- 
ervoir seething with the motions of its units of en- 
ergy, and each form is in a state of continual change, 
and however great or small, in the course of time it 
is sure to cease to be that which it now is. Its form 
is sure to go out of existence; but just as surely no 
part of its substance will ever be lost. Even the ele- 
ments, iron, gold, etc., may lose electrons and change 
to some other element. We know that radium by 
the loss of electrons from its atom changes to helium 
and we know that suns by collision with other suns 
may be changed into nebulae. From these facts we 
infer that the universe is in a process of eternal cre- 
ation, and that it is a perfect mechanism in which 
every part is dependent on every other part. 

As we view the grand scheme of the heavens both 
past and present we see that the Creative Power 
works by laws that are without change, the laws 
being necessary derivatives from His own change- 
less nature. Every body in the heavens influences 
and is influenced by every other body and changes 
its place and its form as a necessary result of this 
mutual influence. The Creative Power seems to be 



THE MAKING OF THE HEAVENS 41 

embodied primarily in the sensitive units of energy, 
the electrons, which compose all parts of all bodies 
in all the universe. These electric units influence 
one another and hold one another in balance in the 
structure of the atom. The atoms influence one an- 
other and hold one another together to become the 
elements, gold, silver, etc. The elemients influence 
one another and hold one another to become the 
masses in the stars and planets. The stars and plan- 
ets influence one another and hold one another in 
systems, as the solar system and the star systems 
that compose the universe, each and everything mov- 
ing as its own nature and the nature of the things 
about it compel. Thus the law of mutual influence 
causes the electrons to form atoms, the atoms to 
form stars and planets, the stars and planets to 
form systems, the same law holding the electrons 
in balance in the atoms as holds the spheres in their 
systems in the heavens. Each body, whether elec- 
tron or star, always moves as compelled by its nature 
and its neighbors. 

'There's a dial in the garden 
And the sun is keeping the time, 
A faint slow-moving shadow 
And we know that worlds are in rhyme ; 
And if that shadow should falter 
By as much as a child's eyelash. 
The sea would devour the mountains 
And worlds together would crash. '* 



The Making of the Earth 



Of material which was once in our sun our earth was 
made. A vast nebulous glowing mass of matter, sucli as we 
now see in many places in the heavens, scattered over billions 
of miles of space, in the course of time gravitated around a 
central nucleus and became an immense sphere revolving on 
its axis from west to east. Such was the birth of our sun, 
which at first shone witli a white light, as do all stars in tlieir 
early history, but which, gradually cooling, has in the course 
of time become yellowish red. It weighs 330,000 times as 
much as our earth, whose weight is six sextillion tons. If 
the sun were a hollow globe, it would hold more than one 
million globes the size of our earth. 

At some time in the early history of our sun another body 
came so near to as to pull away by its gravitation about one 
seventh of one per cent, (one seven-hundred-forty-fifth) of 
the sun's mass. This mass torn from the sun followed the 
body hurtling past, until the body, which must have heen 
moving with immense velocity, was so far away that the grav- 
itational pull of the sun stopped the outward movement of 
the matter torn from it. This nebulous mass once a part of 
the sun spread as far away as Neptune's orbit noAv is, about 
three billions of miles, and, being in the absolute zero tem- 
perature of space, it soon cooled to become myriads of sep- 
arate solid bodies of varying size, each one of which moved 
in its orbit around the sun and rotated in its axis from west 
to east as its material did when in the sun. These myriads 
of little solid bodies then existing are called planetesimals. 

The larger planetesimals in the course of time pulled 
into themselves by gravitation the smaller bodies in and near 
their orbits around the sun, and thus they grew to become the 
eight great planets, of which our earth is one, and the planet- 
oids between Mars and Jupiter. How long a course of time 
Avas required for this process we cannot even conjecture, for 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 



Ave have as yet no basis of measurement of the rate of these 
accretions of planetesimals to form a planet; but that the 
process is as just described is believed to be the truth by all 
those most competent to form an opinion on the subject. 

Thus the earth was made by the coming together of scatter- 
ed material such as is now found in meteors. The large masses 
would attract to themselve the smaller and in course of time 
an immense globe would be built up. Whether this scatter- 
ed material was hot or cold, for it may have been either, the 
globe being formed by it would become melted as it formed, 
for the impact of new meteors upon it and the gr;ivitational 
pressure of all towards a common center would generate heat 
sufficient to keep it far above the melting point of any sub- 
stance known to us. When in this melted state, which prob- 
ably lasted thousands of millions of years as our earth was 
gradually sweeping into itself the meteoric matter in and 
near its orbit, the denser material, like iron, would gravi- 
tate toward the center and the lighter material would be 
pushed outward, the lightest floating on the surface. 

The moon, like the earth, orginated from a nebular 
knot made by the coming together of myriads of planetesi- 
n:ials. Being so near the earth, originally much nearer than 
it is now, it was forced by gravitation to revolve around the 
earth. It is now 238,800 miles away. It would require 
eighty-one moons to weigh as much as the earth. The moon 
has no air and no water. 

Now that the earth's outer surface has cooled and become 
solid and rigid and the pressure of so vast a mass has raised 
the melting point of the interior, it seems likely that the earth 
as a whole is a solid body except for some pockets of melted 
material, some of which, are the causes of our volcanoes. As 
-we proceed downward from the surface of the earth the tem- 
perature increases at such a rate that we would jit the depth 
of fifty miles find the most refractory substances melted, but 
the fact that the pressure also increases and raises the melt- 
ing point faster than it increases the temperature keeps it 
solid and rigid. This pressure increases from zero at the 
surface to nearly or quite Miy million pounds on the square 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 



inch near the center of the earth. It is this which makes 
the earth act as a solid body despite its highly heated in- 
terior. The rate of earthquake shocks that pass near the 
earth's center being faster than those which pass the outer 
portion, the yielding of the earth's shape to the tidal forces of 
sun and moon with the same elasticity as a ball of steel of 
similar size would yield, the proof that the deep interior of 
the earth is 8.3 times that of water, the outer rocky shell 
being 3.2 times, all corroborate the view that the earth's 
deep interior, though intensly hot, is now as rigid and as 
heavy as iron. It is not believed to be liquid. The notion 
long prevailing that beneath an outer solid crust there is a 
fluid melted mass is being abandoned. 

We know that iron is found in large quantities in the sun, 
from which the matter of the meteors is supposed to have 
been derived. We know that the meteorites which still fall 
upon the earth and of which the earth was made have most 
of the metals and much stony matter in them, iron being found 
plentifully in every meteor that falls. From these facts it 
seems reasonable to suppose that the heavy metal core of the 
earth is mainly iron. 

Prof. J. W. Gregory thus describes how the nebula be- 
came the earth: * * "The earth probably began as a col- 
lection of cold meteorites, but it passed through a stage in 
which the surface was warmer than it is now. During the 
crowding of the luereorites into a dense mass they must have 
come into violent collisions and thus have been made very 
hot. But a more permanent source of heat was the con- 
traction of the mass after the meteorites had all come into 
contact." 

"The heat of the contraction would doubtless be suf- 
ficient to melt some of the materials; but they could only 
melt near the surface, as the pressure in the deep layers 
would prevent the expansion that takes place when the solids 
became liquid. Hence the center of the mass would be kept 
solid by pressure. Although we have not contrived any direct 
access far into the earth's interior, the existence of a great 
metallic core has been shown to be most probable by determi- 



6 THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 

nations of the Aveight of the earth. The earth, therefore, 
consists of tAvo main parts — the stony crust known as the 
lithosphere, and a heavy metallic mass known as the bary- 
sphere. The crust of the earth consisting of rock is esti- 
mated to be forty miles in thickness. Below this crust there 
is supposed to be mainly nickle-iron." 

The weight of the material on the earth's surface is 2.6 
times that of water, while the average weight of the earth as 
a whole is 5.6 times that of water. It must be, therefore, 
that the material of the interior of tlie earth is composed of 
the heavier metals. 

The temperature of the earth's crust increases one degree 
Fahrenheit for CA'Crj^ fifl3'-three feet, of vertical descent, or 
one hundred degrees for every mile. As iron melts at sixteen 
hundred degrees we would expect the solid crust to be only 
sixteen miles thick but for the fact that the greater the pres- 
sure the higher the melting point of a metal. 

The oceans cover nearly three fourths of the earth's 
sui-face. Speaking more accurateh% we say that the area 
of the land to the ocean is as 1:2.4. The height of the 
land above the sea level is on the average 2250 feet. The 
bottom of the ocean below the sea level is on the average 12,- 
000 feet. Speaking more accuratelj^ we say that the mean 
height of land is to the mean depth of the sea as 1:5.25. 
The highest place on the land is the top of Blount Everest, 
29,000 feet; the greatest depth of the ocean is near Guam 
Island, Nero Deep, 31,615. 

The oceans are believed to be now where they were 
originally formed, but the land levels, being from the first 
under the wear of wind and water are very different from 
what they originally were. In addition to this erosion by 
wind and water the land surface has been greatly changed by 
the wrinkling and folding of the crust due to its further con- 
traction as it further cooled. 

The atmosphere, which is now about a hundred miles 
deep and which is composed by volume of about 21 % oxy- 
gen, 78% nitrogen, 1% argon, and three out of ten thou- 
sand parts carbon dioxide is verj^ much shallower and a 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 



very different mixture from what it was when the earth's 
crust was hot. At that time a great part of it was hydrogen, 
which disappeared from the atmosphere by entering into 
cliemical union with oxygen to become the water which made 
up much of the ocean. Probably the greater part of the 
ocean came from water made by cliemical union in the in- 
terior. This reached the atmosphere through vaporous dis- 
charges of hot springs. 

The tendency now is to estimate the length of time since 
the surface of the earth cooled and became a solid crust to the 
present to l)e in many millions of years. The geologists, basing 
their estimate on the wearing away of land and the laying of 
sediment in water to form strata, believe that a hundred mil- 
lion years have elapsed since first stratified rocks were laid. 
The Chemical Bulletin of the University of Manchester in 
January, 1915, speaking of the length of time required to ac- 
count for the lead and helium now found, says: "The thing 
about these computations (from the radio-activity of ura- 
nium, etc.) is the very high figures which are assigned by 
them to the age of the geologic eras. Rutherford, by the 
helium test, found the age of a sample of Fergusonite to be 
240 million years, and Strutt found an archaen rock to be 
715 million years. Holmes, bj^ the lead method, found the 
carb(niiferous era alone was 350 million years, and the era 
before the Cambrian rocks anything up to 1500 million 
years." These calculations of the chemists are not believed 
to be as reliable as the estimates of the geologists, namely, 
aliout a hundred million years since the earth cooled and the 
oceans were forn^ed, 

It is interesting to not^ that niton, a radium emanation, 
is found widelj" distributed in the earth's crust and in the 
water of wells. As there is enough radium known to exist to 
account for tlie maintenance of the present temperature of 
the earth, we have in this fact a way to account for the fail- 
ure of the earth's crust to become as cold as interstellar 
space, which would have otherwise occurred during the mil- 
lions of years necessary to accumulate the stratified rocks 
formed b}^ the slow settling of silt in the seas and oceans. 



8 THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 

We know that the globe was once in a white hot condition, 
and cooled till a crust of lifeless rocks formed . The heat 
due to the intra-atomic activities of radium and other ele- 
ments that are disintegrating holds the temperature of the 
crust to that which we now have. 

Thus when all the known facts are considered we can 
safely say that hundreds of millions of years ago, perhaps 
billions, our earth came into being. After a period which 
must have been verj^ l<>ng, its surface cooled and hardened 
as a crust, its oceans and its atmosphere were formed, main- 
ly of the oxygen and hydrogen and nitrogen atoms. The 
ocean filled tlie depressed parts of its surface. Vast conti- 
nents of lifeless rocks lay for ages between the oceans. 
Under the wear of frost and sun and wind and rain the 
rocks of the continents crumbled to dust and dissolved in 
water which carried them away. These physical processes 
sculptured the earth's surface and brought into existence the 
mountains and plains and river valleys. The sinking of the 
coasts drowned the river valleys and flooded the plains; the 
rising of the coasts would make them land again. The dry 
land Avas ever wearing away to be deposited as layers of rock 
on lower levels, thousands of years being required to wear 
away a foot deep of the average surface. 

The surface drained by the Mississippi River is now be- 
ing worn away at the rate of one foot in fifteen hundred 
years. The amount of material carried by the Mississippi 
River into the Gulf of Mexico in one year is sufficient to 
cover one square mile to the depth of 269 feet. The average 
rate at which the land is being worn away is one foot in 
3600 years for the entire earth. 

Thus all over the earth the sand and mud and gravel 
were washed down and formed strata of sediment on lower 
levels that became the stratified rocks in which were some- 
times entombed the forms of plants and animals that existed 
then. Often after these layers of sedimentary rocks were 
formed the contraction of the earth's crust would cause 
plains and sea-bottoms to be lifted up, and the surface would 
wrinkle into ridges and mountains that would become new 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 9 

watersheds and make new systems of rivers, lakes, and 
oceans. On some parts of the earth the stratified rocks have 
been overlaid by lava, cinders, and ashes thrown out by 
volcanoes, which, as we know, were more active in the 
earth's early history than they are now. Whether the land 
be formed of volcanic or foundation rocks or by the washings 
from higher levels, it is always being worn away by wind 
and water, which carve deep valleys and expose the con- 
ditions of many millions of years ago. Standing on the edge 
of the canon made by the Colorndo River one may see a 
depth of six thousand feet carved through the layers of strati- 
fied rocks, and looking twelve miles across the canon he will 
see at the highest level a continuation of the stratum at his 
feet. 

A vision of the vast clianges undergone and a conception 
of the long time taken while the earth's surface was being 
brought to its present state may be had from a brief sketch 
of the Rocky Mountain portion of the United States, of which 
the canon of the Colorado is so famous a feature. 

This system of mountains was thrown up by a long 
series of upheavals of the earth's crust that extended from 
Alaska to Cape Horn, the entire extent of North and South 
America in length, while its width in what is now the west- 
ern part of the United States was nearly two thousand miles. 
At the same time that the upheaval of this immense area of 
sea bottom was being effected a very extensive area reach- 
ing beyond Polynesian Islands was being sunk. Though 
this was perhaps a million or more years ago, the facts just 
stated and those that follow^ are phiin to all who have in- 
vestigated them. 

Before this vast area was lifted above the sea level the 
shores of the Pacific Ocean in North America were about 
where the Mississippi River now runs. Sufficient time has 
elapsed since the upheaval of land that shifted the Pacific 
line two thousand miles westward to enable the water to wear 
away the rocks and soil that filled the space that is now 
immense gulches between mountain peaks and immense val- 
leys between the ranges of the Rocky Mountains. Examin- 



10 THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 

ing the side of one of these mountain peaks we see that it is 
composed of strata laid under the ocean, and looking across 
from where we stand to the same level on the adjacent peak, 
as we did across the canon of the Colorado, w^e see a continu- 
ation of the same stratum as that where we stand. We plainly 
see that there was a time when there was no gulch or valley 
and that the forces of erosion, the water and wind, have w^orn 
away the rocks and soil that once filled the intervening space. 

We see, too, that not only the rock and soil once be- 
tween the peaks, as between Pike's Peak and Long's Peak, 
have been carried away by the slow process of erosion by 
water and wind to lower levels, but that all that vast num- 
ber of cubic miles of rock and soil that once lay between the 
tops of these mountains was once deposited on the low lands 
of the Mississippi, and that they have again been worn away. 
The surface of the earth between the crest of the Rockies and 
the Mississippi was once a plane that lay on a straight line 
between these positions. Indeed, the tops of the present 
peaks of the Rocky Mountains must be much below the origi- 
nal height to which the surface was lifted. 

After water had carved the Rockj^ Mountains to their 
present form, a great internal throe made an opening in the 
earth's crust in their w^estern portion and there flowed out 
lava sufiicent to cover 150,000 square miles, and in some 
places it covered it to a thickness of 3,000 to 4,000 feet. 
This immense sea of lava is described by Prof. Joseph 
LeConte as follows: "Commencing in central California as 
separate streams it becomes in the northern part of the state 
a vast flood covering the inequalities of the surface. In 
northern Oregon it becomes a greater flood beneath which 
all of the original surface is completely lost under several 
thousand feet of lava. It covers the greater part of northern 
California and northwestern Nevada, nearly the whole of 
Oregon, Washington and Idaho and runs far up to British 
Columbia to the North. In some places where it is cut 
through by the Columbia River it is 4,000 feet deep. 
In one place where the Des Chutes River cuts through it is 
2500 feet deep." 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH n 

The contemplation of so vast a body of lava brings to 
mind the now accepted theory that the volcanoes have given 
to the atmosphere almost all the carbon dioxide it contains, 
and as this gas is a necessity to all plant life and as all ani- 
mal life lives on plant life, we must conclude that but for the 
volcanoes the earth would be lifeless today, only bare rock and 
ocean. In every ten thousand parts of the atmosphere there 
are but three parts of carbon dioxide. From the lungs of all 
animals it is expired and the leaves of all plants absorb it; 
but the supply of it from the breath of animals is exceedingly 
small as compared with that obtained from volcanoes of the 
past and present, mainly of the past when the earth's crust 
was not so thick as it is today. But we must return from 
this digression to our description of the Rocky Mountains. 

The Columbia River has cut through the entire breadth 
and depth of the Cascade range down to within 100 feet of 
the sea level. Here is a canyon 100 miles long with the 
summit of the range rising 3800 feet above the surface of the 
of the river, the walls of which are all solid lava cut through 
by the action of water. When we realize that the peaks of 
the Cascade range, some of them three miles high, are the 
results of the slow erosion of water and wind and sun and 
frost, and then realize that the valleys between were filled to 
a depth of four thousand feet with lava w^hich was also cut 
away by these same slow forces of erosion, we can agree that 
a million years have passed during the process. And from 
this brief sketch of the upheaval and the carving out of our 
Rocky Mountains, we may form some conception of the mak- 
ing of other mountain systems of our earth's surface, both of 
the titanic forces which lifted the crust thousands of feet high 
and poured out lava beds upon it, and of those slow but 
continuous forces of erosion that make our mountain peaks 
and valleys. 

"There rolls the sea where grew the tree, 
O earth, what changes thou hast seen! 
There where the long street roars hath been 
The stillness of the central sea." 



12 THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 

Having had a vision of the changes in the earth's sur- 
face, the carving of its mountain systems and the forming of 
its river valleys, let us look at the changes in the life upon 
it. The magnolia tree with its grand flowers, which now ap- 
pears only in sub-tropical Asia and the eastern part of North 
America, once burgeoned and bloomed where Greenland's icy 
mountains now" are. We find in the rocks of Greenland fos- 
sils which contain the spendid leaf and flower of this tree, 
and we also find it as fossils in rocks laid in other 
countries where it does not now exist, in Europe and Aus- 
tralia, most of them in strata laid more than five million 
years ago. It is found in Greenland in the Miocene era in 
strata laid about two million years ago. Far back of the 
time when the magnolia grandiflora and the oaks and the 
pines and our other trees with seed and fruit and flowers be- 
came features of our world, we reach a time when the whole 
earth was lush with the life of seedless and flowerless plants, 
which grew so rank that when they were submerged by water 
and covered by mud they became veins of coal. 'J'hey were the 
giant ferns, giant mosses and horsetails. The energy of the 
sunshine then trapped by their green leaves is now unlocked 
as light and heat and power, and it glows in our furnaces, 
lights our cities, and runs our factories. The plants grew rank, 
for the earth's atmosphere was then laden with moisture, 
and the sun's rays, which were much hotter then than now, 
evaporated far more of the ocean surface and made warmer 
and denser clouds that acted as a perpetual blanket reaching 
from pole to pole. All parts of the earth had the same warm 
moist climate. The same plants, the mightiest of which were 
ferns and mosses, were then everywhere on the earth. We 
know this for they are found as fossils in all continents. 

Thanks to the heroic endeavors of those who have 
visited the poles of the earth (the North Pole by Peary 
April 6, 1909, the South Pole by Amundsen December 
14, 1911, and by Scott, January 18, 1912) we now know 
that once there were plants living on the land and in the 
sea near both the North and South Poles, where ice and 
snow are now perpetual. The North Pole is surrounded 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 13 

by the Arctic Ocean, which is about two miles deep at 
the pole. The South Pole is on a great land plateau which 
is about two miles high at the pole. Peary found fossil 
bearing rocks of both plants and animals on the shores of 
the Arctic Ocean, (83 degrees North). Specimens of rocks 
collected at the South Pole by the lamented Scott and found 
by his dead body prove on examination to be granite, 
gneiss and other archaean rocks made before there Avere any 
stratified rocks or any life upon the earth; but seams of 
coal and fossil wood and great thicknesses of limestone, 
which is composed of skeletons of radiolaria and other 
forms of sealife once deposited as ooze in a sea bottom, were 
found in Victoria Land, 85 degrees south, by Scott in his 
expedition of 1902. This proves the statement made above 
that the plants of which the coal beds were made grew all 
over the earth, reaching ahnost to the poles. 

The plants that once filled all lands were, as stated 
above, ferns and mosses and horse-tails, whose descendants 
are still found all over the earth, but only in its dank, dark 
places and in forms that are pigmies as compared with 
their giant ancestors, which in the Paleozoic Age covered all 
lands. Plants that bore flowers and fruit and seed came in- 
to being after the ferns, the family of plants of which the 
pine and fir and gingko and cypress and cedar are members 
being the seed plants which came earliest. It helps to give 
a picture of the world during the age when ferns and mosses 
were the highest plants to note that the fishes and amphib- 
ians like our salamanders were the highest forms of animals 
then living, and that a few kinds of insects including forms 
like beetles, cockroaches and dragonflies were the only anim- 
als above the Avorms that lived on the land during the Car- 
boniferous era. 

It required vast ages — many, many millions of years — 
for the condition of warmth and moisture that prevailed 
all over the earth during the times when ferns and mosses 
were the highest plants to change to our present climatic 
conditions, when there is eternal winter near the poles and 
eternal summer near the equator. The pines, firs, gingkoes, 



14 THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 

spruces, cypresses, and cedar, which came into existence as 
a development just above the ferns, in the Permian period, 
do not until the present geologic age, nine or ten million 
years later, have the concentric rings that show the falling 
of their leaves during the winter and the accretion of a 
year's growth. Specimens of these trees found in t h e 
Cretaceous period — some of tliese specimens of petrified pine 
trees laid in Cretaceous strata are found in Georgia — have no 
suggestion of annual rings of growth. They must have 
lived at a time when there were no winters where they grew. 
The very spots of earth now occupied bj^ London, 
Paris, Vienna, and the other great cities built by man were 
once sea bottoms. Our highest mountains, as the Alps and 
Himalayas and Rocky Mountains, were sea bottoms in re- 
cent geologic times. Indeed, the great height of these 
mountains is owing to the fact that sufficent time has not 
elapsed since their uplifting from the sea level for the water 
and wind and sun to wear them away. The fact that the 
Alleghany Mountains are not so high as the Rockies is no 
doubt owing to the Alleghany's being by far the oldest. 
We can not now tell how high the Alleghanies once were. 
The summits of Mt. Shasta (14,380 feet) and other peaks 
of the immense mountains in the western part of our coun- 
try bear fossils of plants and animals that did not live un- 
til the Pliocene era, which is a part of the present geologic 
"age." On the top of Pike's Peak we find the teeth of 
the great shark, which was nearly a hundred feet long and 
lived on the manatees, dolphins, and other sea mammals of 
the Miocene era. It is these fossils which tell the storj^ of 
the order of creation of living things on the earth in a way 
that can not be gainsaid. For instance, in strata lower 
than those referred to on Mt. Shasta, which are nearly 
three miles above the sea level, we find bones of animals 
that lived in the Mesozoic Age, or the Age of Reptiles, 
which just preceded the Age of Mammals, the present geo- 
logic age. We find bones of these great reptiles in large 
number in the Rocky Mountains of Utah, a mile above the 
sea level. There is an especially large number of these bones 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 15 

found near the banks of the Green River where it makes its 
way through the Uintah Mountains. We find there the 
bones of a great many dinosaurs, those immense four legged 
reptiles that dominated the entire earth during the Jurassic 
and Cretaceous era, estimated to be five to ten million years 
ago. The bones of these dinosaurs are there found Imried in 
the sand that settled in the mouth of a once existing river 
which flowed into an ancient sea, whose shore lines we may 
now plainly trace, though they are now not only a mile 
above the sea level, but they are a thousand miles from 
the nearest coast. Here we find at the very sunnnit of a 
mountain in a stratum of sand and stone that is tilted at 
an angle of sixtj^ degrees the petrified bones of the bronto- 
saurus, the most colossal land animal that ever lived. It 
was seventy feet long, the largest thing that ever lived 
except the whale. It was one of the many varieties of the 
dinosaurs. 

Some of these reptiles were herb eaters and others were 
flesh eaters, for in all the ages since animals came into ex- 
istence they have lived by devouring plants or other animals. 

"Life evermore is fed by death 

In land and sea and sky, 
And that a rose may breathe its breath 

Something must die." 

**The milk-haired heifer's life must pass 

That it may fill our own. 
As passed the sweet life of the grass 

She fed upon," 

The bones of these immense reptiles are found in all 
continents, and in such large numbers that we can form a 
very good picture of our earth during the latter part of the 
Mesozoic Age. Only a few mammals had come into ex- 
istence and these were very small, not larger than the rab- 
bits of today, Vjut these dinosaurs were everywhere. Many 
varieties lived in the sea as veritable sea monsters, with 
flippers that could propel their immense forms and with 
strength and teeth that enabled them to devour any other 



16 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 








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THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 17 

inhabitant of the ocean. There were manj^ varieties tliat 
lived on the land. Some of them stood on two feet and 
could reach the top of a tree thirty feet high. Some of 
them had sliarp claws and saber-shaped teeth that adapted 
them to hold and devour their prey. Others, like the 
huge brontosaurus whose bones are now found in the Rocky 
Mountains, stood on four feet and had teeth adapted to eat- 
ing herbs. Still other varieties lived in the air, some of 
them with a wing span of twenty feet. Thus these four leg- 
ged reptiles ruled the air, land, and sea, and were then the 
leading features in the life of the earth. Now nearly all of 
the varieties are extinct, their only descendants being a few 
species of snakes, lizards, alligators, and tortoises, which 
are growing fewer in numbers from year to year. In the 
embr3^o of the snake we find legs that later disappear, a fact 
which shows that their ancestors had legs. After this Age 
of Reptiles there came the Age of Mammals. 

The forms of life now living are in lineal descent from 
those in the age just before us. It is from fossils that we 
find out what these forms were, and the order of their ar- 
rival. To illustrate, we find in the calcium phosphate beds 
that were formed on the western part of Florida and under 
the Gulf of Mexico adjoining it the bones of many animals 
living in the Miocene era. These deposits of phosphate 
contain many bones of the three-toed horse, the saber-tooth- 
ed tiger, and the mammoth and other mammals long ago 
extinct. The forms of mammals in the era following must 
be descendants of these. In the same strata with bones of 
these land animals there are found in these phosphate beds 
the bones of extinct forms of whales, the great shark, man- 
atees, and many other forms of sea life. This proves that 
all of these were contemporaries. The land of the western 
part of Florida was time and again through long ages lifted 
above the sea, and sea animals in large numbers gathered 
in low places and perished when the water drained away. 
On again being submerged it became a sea bottom with 
skeletons of land animals also upon it over which the silt of 
inflowing streams settled to form layers of rocks. We have 



18 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 



COM^OStTtt ( Omt, 0«wm) 



lN(UT.r(i6tn 



<e#.aft*^ 




•ftVOWVTES ] I 

Mosses 



Cu.o.Br«/ CCHINODCRMATA 



PROTOVb*»W . Wu* CHkOllftrNVM 



Diagram of Developments. 
Tiie ascent of tlie higlier life-forms from the lower 
is more lateral than the lines indicate, but the dia- 
gram is onl3' a rough attempt to show the relative 
places of the leading groups. — From Clodd's Primer of 
Evolution. 

preserved for us in this wsly the fossils that tell us the 
ancestry of many forms of life and show us that every form 
that has lived is in lineal d^^scent from those that formed 
in the previous geologic age. 

The order or sequence of time in which plants and ani- 
mals were created b y a process o f development from 
simplest to complex forms, from the lower to the higher, is 
now plainly revealed to us in the fossil remains found in 
the stratified rocks. The oldest strata laid that contained 
the earliest forms of plants and animals are called the 
Palaeozoic (Ancient Life) Age. The strata laid just above 
these are called the Mesozoic (Middle Life) Age. The 
strata laid just above these are called the Cainozoic (Recent 
Life) Age. The laying of these sti-ata, which contain skele- 
tons of CO- temporary plants and animals, was begun a hun- 
dred million of years ago, according to estimates thought 
to be conservative. 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 



19 



SYSTEM- 




TVnCAt FOSSILS. 




%'^ 






3?^^^''^^© 






Man 

Mammoth 

Manlike Apes 

Woolly Quadrupeds 

Whales 

Horses 

Monkeys 

Serpents 
isummuiites 
Bony-Skeletoned Fish 

Oaks, Mapleri 
Cover Seeded Plants 

Birds 

Bird-Reptiles 
Mammals [small] 

Pines 

Firs 

Palms 

Sea-Lizards 

Reptiles, Cycads 
Land Vertebrates 
Horse-tails 
Ferns 

Fishes 

Lowest Vertebrate 
Huge Crustaceans 

Insects 
Ostracoderms 
Sea Scorpions 

Trilobites 

Club-mosses 

Shell-fish 

Sponges 
Corals 
Crustaceans 
Sea-weed [Algae] 



Stratified Rock 
Without fossils 



Taulb Of Stratified Rocks. 

The above table taken by consent from Clodd's 
Primer of Evolution (Longman, Green & Co.) gives a 
fairly correct impression of the strata and the first ap- 
pearance of typical plants and animals. An impres- 
sion of tlie time necessary to make all the layers of 
rocks may be inferred from the fact that the Tertiary 
Age required five million years. 



Plants developed in the following order: first those 
made of one cell, including bacteria, yeast, molds, algae, 
and fungi; second, the mosses and liverworts; third, the 
ferns, which have no flowers or seeds; fourth, the seed 
plants, the earliest of which w^ere those ^vhose seeds were 



20 THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 

naked, as pines, firs and others. After these came the true 
ii(jwering plants, as magnolias, oaks, the daisy heing the 
plant most nearly perfect in all its parts. 

Animals developed in the following order: first, those 
made of one cell, like the amoeba, Paramecium and others; 
second, sponges, corals, jelly fishes, and others similar; 
third, star fish, sea urchins, and others similar; fourth, 
worms; fifth, molluscs, including mussels, oysters, snails, 
squids, and all one-valved shell ^sh; sixth, crabs, crawfish, 
insects, spiders; seventh, the shell-skins, n o w extinct, 
and the amphioxus; eighth, fish, the earliest animal with 
a head developed from backbone; ninth, amphibia, like our 
salamanders and frogs; tenth, reptiles; eleventh, birds; 
twelfth, animals that suckle their young, the mammals, 
which include man as the highest. 

In the Palaeozoic Age, the most ancient and much the 
longest, we find trilolntes, crustaceans and molluscs in the 
lower strata and we find the simplest fishes and amphibia 
in the upper strata. We also find in this Age fossil remains 
of all types of plants now^ on the earth except the cover- 
seeded ones. The ferns and primitive seed plants developed 
into luxuriant growths in the carboniferous era of this Age 
and formed the veins of coal. They were in the Arctic 
regions as well as in the Tropics, there being little or no 
dffierence l)etween the fossils of the Arctic and Tropical 
regions of the earth laid during the Carboniferous Era. After 
this era the fossil plants gradually changed to their present 
forms in the various zones. The modern firs, pines and cj^- 
cads begin to appear in the Permian Era, the last of the 
Palaeozoic Age. 

In the Mesozoic Age the reptiles came into being and 
predominated. They evolved from fishes through amphibi- 
an links which arose during the Carboniferous or Coal Era 
of the Palaeozoic Age, the breast fins of the fishes becoming 
the jointed forelegs, the pelvic fins the hind legs. The 
earliest amphibia have five toes, wdiich developed out of the 
fin of the fish. Some of the reptiles which developed from 
these amphibia were of huge size. There were, as stated be- 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 21 

fore, swimming reptiles wliich ruled the sea, flying reptiles, 
some of them with wings twenty feet from tip to tip, which 
ruled the air, and walking reptiles, some of them seventy- 
five feet long, which ruled the land. During the Mesozoic 
Age birds and mammals came into being; and owing to 
the cold winters, which must have then begun, the reptiles, 
whose blood would grow cold in cold surroundings, soon 
became nearly extinct. After this the birds and mammals, 
whose blood keeps warm, began to increase in number and 
variety and in the next Age they ruled the air and the land. 
The highest plants, the poplars, willows, planes, tulip trees 
and magnolias first appear during the Chalk Era of the 
Mesozoic, and we also find that oaks, maples, walnuts, 
sassafras and others began their existence then. 

The Caenozoic or Recent Age is also called the Age of 
Mammals, for the mammals developed very rapidly in 
numbers and variety and powers and they took the mastery 
of the earth. The age of mammals began about five mil- 
lion years ago. Man appeared about a half million years ago. 

"From lower to higher, from simple to complete, 

This is the pathway of Eternal Feet; 

From earth to lichen, from herb to towering tree, 

From cell to worm, from man to what shall be; 

This is the lesson of all time. 

This is the teaching of the Voice Sublime." 

The ocean as first formed must have been fresh water, 
for it was made from the chemical union of the oxygen and 
hydrogen once existing in vast quantities in the atmosphere 
and from vaporous discharges from hot springs. At a cer- 
tain high temperature, \Vhich was once the condition after 
the earth's crust was formed, oxygen and hydrogen atoms 
rushed together to form steam, which as the earth's crust 
further cooled condensed to become pure water. The 
condensation of the vapor from hot springs would also be- 
come pure water. This fresh water sought the lower levels 
and became the oceans. The salt and other chemicals 
now in the oceans must have been brought as washings 



22 THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 

from the land. As the amount of this salt in the ocean is 
known, and as the amount being carried to the ocean by 
the streams each year is also approximately known, the 
scientists have been able to calculate the number of years 
since the oceans were created, their creation being due to 
the condensation of the heated A^apor of the atmosphei-e. 
This estimate is one hundred and fifty million years. After 
the oceans were formed the stratified rocks were laid on their 
bottoms near the shore. These rocks are made of mud 
and other material carried as silt by the running streams 
that washed the land and entered the oceans. In the 
first stratified rocks there are ripple marks and beach lines, 
but there is no evidence that there then existed any living 
thing. The sun shone, the rain fell, the rivers flowed, the 
ocean heaved with its waves and tides; but there was no life. 
Above the strata of sedimentary rocks holding the 
earliest ripple marks, which show the existence at that time 
of the tides and winds and Avaves of the ocean, are an im- 
mense depth of layers before w e reach the layers that 
contain evidence of the existence of life. It must haA^e 
taken an enormous length of time, some estimate thirty 
million years, for the laying of these rocks which preceded 
the making of life. FolloAving these in order of super- 
position are rocks containing fossils, first of bacterial life, 
next of one celled life, next of earliest insects, Avhich are 
about midAvay in the strata, showing that about the same 
length of time elasped before fully developed insects were 
made as from the Age of Insects till now, each of these 
lengths of time being also estimated to be thirty million 
years. If all layers of rocks Avere put one above the other 
in the oi'der of time laid, they would reach a height of 
sixty-five miles above the earth's surface. It must have taken 
millions and millions of years for this much sediment to have 
been deposited. As it is interesting to know what the scien- 
tist believe as to how many years were required to make these 
layers of rocks, the author submits the statements made by 
Charles Walcott, head of U. S. Geological Survey, and by H. 
F. Osborn, Curator of National Museum: — 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 23 

Walcott says: "The age of the earth in years I shall not 
attempt to discuss. A recent careful resume shows the rela- 
tive age of the sedimentary strata for each period of its histo- 
ry. These figures point to a minimum time limit of scarcely 
less than 90,000,000 of years since water and wind began 
to transport continental earth and rocks over the land and 
into seas and lakes. How long before that the earth history 
began it is difficult even to conjecture. With the discovery of 
tiie stored up energy of radium and the development of the 
planetesimal hypothesis the supposed fixed standards of the 
past generation have been swept away Approxi- 
mately as long a period of time was required to develop life 
to the Cambrian stage of semiprimitive forms of invertebrate 
marine fossils as has since elapsed up to the present time." 

Osborn estimates that sixty millions years have elapsed 
since life was formed and that thirty million years have 
elapsed since the beginning of the Palaeozoic Age. It was in 
the first era, the Cambrian of the Palaeozoic Age that trilo- 
bites, a marine insect, were the highest forms of life. He 
thinks that there was a period of about fifteen million years 
from the beginning of life before the earliest invertebrate was 
formed, that during the next fifteen million years the evo- 
lution of invertebrates proceeded until the earth was domi- 
nated by them, that during the next five million years which 
could be called the Age of Invertebrates there finally developed 
a form which was the immediate ancestor of the fish. The 
Age of Fishes after about seven million years developed into 
the Age of Amphibians, which after about six more million 
years developed into the Age of Reptiles. This after some 
nine million years ushered in the Age of Mammals which began 
about three million years ago. The evolution of man was 
completed nearly a half million years ago. Thus many 
million years after the ocean was formed we have no evidence 
of life in the stratified rocks; then there were thirty million 
years from the earliest life till the Cambrian era or the Age 
of Invertebrates; then another thirty million of Vertebrates, 
during Avhich the order of creation was fishes, then amphib- 
ians, then reptiles, then birds, then mammals. 



24 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 



The following geological time table is taken from Osborn's 
Origin and Evolution of Life. It may be justlj^ considered as 
representing conservative opinion on this subject. 



Duration of Period 


Order of Creation 


Geologic Ages 


Geologic Eras 


One-half MaHon 
Years 


Age of Man 




Quaternary 


Three MilHon Years 


Age of 
Mammals 


Cenozoic 


Tertiary 


Nine MilHon Years 


Age of 
Reptiles 


Mesozoic 


Upper Cretaceous 


Low^er Cretaceous 


Jurassic 


Triassic 


Eighteen Million 
Years 


Age of 
Amphibians 

Age of 
Fishes 

Age of 
Invertebrates 


Palaeozoic 


Permian 


Carboniferous 


Devonian 


Silurian 


Ordovician 


Cambrian 


Fifteen Million Years 


Evolution of 
Invertebrates 


Proterozoic 


Keeweenawan 


Huronian 


Fifteen Million Years 


Evolution of 
Unicellular Life 


Archaeozoic 


Laurentian 


Keewatin 



The above table indicates the time occui3ied by each geo- 
logic age since life was formed, according to Osborn. The en- 
tire time is there given to be sixty millon years. Manj^ geolo- 
gists insist that it required a hundred million years for the lay- 
ing of strata since tlie evolution of life began. More than half 
of this time was i^assed before the first backboned animal was 
formed. 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 26 

The End of the World 

Human research has not only made out the main 
features of the past of our eartli since its crust cooled a 
hundred million years ago, hut it has made a forecast of its 
future so definite that we can with our mind's eye see the 
outlines of coming events till its death and destruction, 
till that far away time when there comes "the crush of 
matter and the wreck of worlds." This forecast is made 
out as follows: 

Though the stars nearest to us are so far distant from 
us that it requires many years for light, which travels at 
the rate of eleven million miles a minute, to cross the inter- 
vening space, we have been able by the aid of the spectro- 
scope to discover that they are composed of the same kind 
of matter as the earth — oxygen, iron, gold, etc. We have 
also been able to determine the intensity of the light and 
heat emitted by each of them and to prove that the blue 
white stars are suns in the prime of life just formed from 
nebulae and that yellowish stars like our sun and Arcturus 
are about midway their lives and that the red ones are suns 
vslowly dying. Sirius, the brightest of all the stars, is 
bluish white and is ten times as hot as our sun. Aldeba- 
ran, though a brilliant star, is of a reddish color and is about 
one-half as hot as the sun. Capella is a red star and has 
about the same temperature as the sun, 5950 degrees C, 
which is equal to burning a layer oi coal twenty feet thick 
over the entire surface in one hour. 

Our sun is a yellowish red star and is past its middle 
life. Like all the rest it produces heat and liglit by shrink- 
ing, its diameter now growing less at the rate of a mile in 
eleven years. This process will continue till the natural 
limit of shrinking is reached, when the sun will of neces- 
sity grow dark and cold. Under the laws of gravity our 
moon, now without air or life and now holding the same 
side always to us, will, in course of time, begin to draw 
nearer to the earth and wall finally fall into and become a 
part of it. The earth and all the other planets will become 



26 THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 

lifeless and heatless as our moon alreadj^ is; also they will 
in time hold one unchanging side to the sun, and they 
will fall into its shrinking and cooling surface. At last the 
sun, dark, cold, silent and solid, will continue to speed 
through space forever, unless collision witli some other 
celestial body convert the two into nebula, into a widely dis- 
persed mass of atoms and electrons which the loom of time 
will weave again into sun and planets. 

We know that there are many such dark and solid extinct 
suns now poised in the ether of space. The beautiful star 
Algol is periodical!}" eclipsed by a dark body, larger than our 
sun, coming between us and it. Quite a number of times 
within our historic period a new star has suddenly come into 
view in the heavens and rapidly reached a condition of great 
brilliancy; then in a few weeks its brilliancy faded and the 
star finalh" disappeared. These are sometimes due to the 
collision of two celestial bodies, probably extinct suns, at im- 
mense distances from us. The heat and light that suddenly 
appeared were due to the liberation of the intra-atomic ether 
energy caused bj^ the shock of the collision, which converted 
the two solid globes, in whole or in part, into a nebulous 
mass that soon scattered itself through Ijillions of miles of 
space. Most of this would be drawn together to form a new 
sun and planets about the area in which the collision took 
place. 

This is the eternal drama of nature, the birth and life- 
history and death of worlds. Careful and eminent scientists 
estimate that our sun and earth are more than a hundred 
million and less than a thousand million years old, — that 
is, from their birth as globes to their present state; that the 
career of the sun as a light and heat giving bodj^ is much 
more than half spent, and that in time its gaseous substance 
will change first to liquid, then into solid matter; that its 
surface must thenceforth cool rapidly by the radiation of heat, 
and a crust be formed that will cut off light from its central 
portion and make it a dark body. They estimate that the 
future during which the sun will continue to give light and 
heat is a hundred million years. After that — the dark. 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 27 

Long before this darkness it seems probable that life on 
the earth will have become extinct. As water in the liquid 
state is essential to the living cell, life on earth is limited to 
the time during which the temperature on its surface keeps 
water in that state, that is, temperature neither above the 
boiling point nor below the freezing point of water. It follows 
from this that living fornis did not come into being until the 
earth's surface had cooled and water was upon it, and from 
this we can foretell that when the earth's surface growls to be 
so cold that all the water has changed into ice all life will 
have become extinct. Thus the duration of life on the earth 
in the future will be as long as the sun shines with such 
power as to keep the AA'ater in a liquid state. 

It should be mentioned also in this connection that the 
slow evaporation of the earth's air into space is going on, and, 
as life depends on air as well as water, the lack of air may 
possibly bring life to extinction before the sun ceases to shine. 
It is also true that the earth is slowly reducing its rate of 
revolution on its axis, slowly lengthening its day, and that 
the time will surely arrive when the earth, just as is already 
the case with its sister planets. Mercury and Venus, will re- 
volve on its axis only once in a year, and thus forever keep 
the same half of its surface towards the sun. The natural 
forces that have made the moon hold the same half of its sur- 
face toward the earth, revolving on its axis in exactly the 
same time it revolves around the earth, are operating to bring 
the same relation of the earth to the sun, that is, to keep the 
same half of the earth always toward the sun. 

But during the aeons ahead before there comes this 
extinction of life, during the many millions of years before 
our earth is dark and frozen, all living things will continue 
as heretofore their process of evolution toward better forms, 
a better adjustment to their environment. They will con- 
tinue that long ascent which started as one cell and reached 
man as he is today, rising through the fish stage to cold- 
blooded clammy-skinned creatures, living both in water 
and on land, that lived on the shore and that later walked 
on the land, there struggling from form to form and from 



28 THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 

power to power into Avarm -blooded animals with larger 
brains and hairy skins until at last man came into being. 
There is everj^ reason to believe that this long ascent will 
continue to heights that are higher, man and the other 
creatures now living developing into forms which we can- 
not now foresee. There is reason to expect beyond this a 
gradual disappearance of living things on the earth which, 
growing colder and colder, will at last be bereft of life. It 
will become dark and frozen and will go rolling on through 
the silent fields of space carrying the remains of man's 
cities on its dead and icy bosom. No day will ever again 
dawn upon it and from it no thought will ever again arise. 
Thus, reasoning from facts, we have reached what 
seems to be a necessary conclusion that the time is coming 
when, for lack of air and water, no life will live on the 
earth, and when, for the lack of sunshine, no day will 
dawn thereon. Bej^ond this there will be darkness total 
except for the faint light that comes from twinkling stars. 
In this darkness our erstwhile sun, into whose charred 
body the earth and her sister planets will have been drawn, 
will go hurtling through space without limit and through 
time without measure, — until collision with some celestial 
body disperses its material into space as atoms and 
electrons. The world then ends in a nebulous mass which 
by the laws of its nature will again become a sun and 
planets. 



This concludes a sketch of the past and the future of our 
ever-changing earth, ever changing because the creative pro- 
cess is never ceasing. These changes are mechanized by the 
invariable law^s of nature, which are the eternal hands of 
God weaving in the loom of time and space the ever chang- 
ing pattern of the universe. 

"Before the mountains were brought forth, 

Or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the Avorld, 

From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God". 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 29 



Pictures Showing Development of Animals from 

Ancient Simple Forms to Modern 

Complex Forms 



Tl:ie author here inserts some drawings and plioto- 
graphs of animals, giving on each page animals that were 
living together in a certain geologic era, those on the first 
page being some that left their bodies entombed in the 
stratified rocks of theSilurian Era. Those on the 
next page are those whose bodies are found in the strata or 
era just above and following this, and so on, the succeed- 
ing pages giving the succeeding eras of the earth's history 
till the present. Some of these animals are extinct, as for 
instance, the trilobite, a three lobed crustacean from two 
inches to a foot long, which lived through all the eras of 
the Palaeozoic (Ancient Life) Age and are now found 
numerous as fossils in the rocks of many parts of the earth. 
Its hard shell has preserved it and enabled us to see its 
head, thorax, abdomen and antennae, though it became 
extinct in the Permian Era of the Palaeozoic Age, estimated 
to have been fifteen million years ago. 

The pictures are from nature, those of animals not 
living being restorations from parts found in the rocks; 
those of living animals are from photographs. The reader 
in looking a t these pictures i s seeing what God hath 
wrought; he is looking at the manuscript of the Creator, 
written during a period that has covered probably more 
than a hundred million years. 



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THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 




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THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 33 



The photograph taken by 
consent from Encyclopedia 
Britannica, 11th Edition, is 
that of the skeleton of a horse, 
herds of which once lived in 
South Dakota. It shows large 
side toes on the fore and hind 
feet, for it was a three- toed 
horse that lived in the forests 
along the stream borders. 
These extra toes must have 
admirably adapted it to such 
a condition, for they would 
have kept its feet from sinking 
in the soft soil. Its bones are 
found in upper Miocene strata, 
and it is known to geologists 
as t h e Hypohippus. The 
bones of the three-toed horse 
are also found in the phosphate 
beds of Florida, which was a 
marshy region during Miocene 
times. There is also found in 
the Miocene rocks of South 
Dakota the skeleton of another three-toed horse, the Neohip- 
parion. 

The bones of the horse as he changed from stratum to 
stratum, as he grew taller, fleeter, and stonger, are now seen 
iu museums. Skeletons of three-toed horses are mounted in 
many museums. The vestiges of these side toes may now be 
unmistakably seen in every living horse in the "splints" just 
below what we call the knee, but which in reality is the wrist. 
From this "knee" to the hoof is a developed finger on the 
nail of which he walks. 




84 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 




In the upper left hand corner is the phenacodus (1). It 
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The Age of Mammals. Its bones are found in eocene strata 
and shows the animal to be little larger than a fox. The 
picture of the descendants are taken from The Living Ani- 
mals of the World. (Dodd, Mead & Co.) 



THE MAKING OF THE EARTH 






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THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 5 

CHAPTER I. 

The Dust Becomes Living Things 

"From lower to higher, from simple to complete, 
This is the pathway of Eternal Feet; 
From earth to lichen, from herb to towering tree, 
From cell to worm, from man to what shall be ; 
This is the lesson of all time. 
This is the teaching of the Voice Sublime." 

There must have elapsed millions of years from 
the time when the crust of the earth hardened and 
the hydrogen and oxygen gases of its atmosphere 
and its rocks united to form water, which sought the 
deep depressions on its surface and became the 
oceans, to the time when the strata of rocks were 
laid that contain the earliest fossils of forms of life. 
The great ocean depths have not changed; they are 
now where they were then. As the water of the 
rivers then washed through the lifeless rocks and 
dust of the land they carried salt that dissolved in 
the ocean; it also carried mud that settled near its 
shores to become the stratified rocks. These strata 
lay on top of the archaean rocks which had resulted 
from the cooling of the once melted earth crust. As 
these strata on top of these archaean rocks have no 
fossils and as they are of enormous thickness, it 
seems to be a necessary conclusion that many mil- 
lions of years elapsed between the forming of the 
ocean and the making of life, whose forms could be 
preserved as fossils. 

On the earth then, as now, atoms of matter were 
forever changing their place, going from one com- 
pound to form another. Higher compounds formed 
then, as now, most rapidly in water. Chemical 



6 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

unions ever more and more complex gradually came 
into existence, and in the course of time carbon, 
hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, etc., united by 
their affinities to form the most intricate compound 
in nature, protoplasm, which became a living cell 
endowed with sensation and self-movement. The 
cell probably came into existence in the pores of 
well-watered soils by lakes or seas. This new com- 
pound reproduced itself by one cell dividing to be- 
come two, and it could obtain energy for movement 
and nutrition for growth by absorbing particles of 
albumen, oil, etc. In this way there came into ex- 
istence on the earth as a purely natural process the 
living cell, multiplying itself and evolving into all 
the million forms of life in the plant and animal 
world. Estimating the time by the thickness of the 
stratified rocks deposited since those strata were 
laid in which the oldest fossils of life are found, the 
geologists maintain that this cell formation occurred 
at least a hundred million years ago. From the 
minute living cells which then formed to the forms 
of birds, dogs, etc., effected by the combination of 
billions of cells is a long, long way; but the life of 
the highest animals is without doubt a continuation 
of the lives of the cells first formed, the varieties of 
things now living being forms of the innumerable 
series evolved from these earliest cells, just as the 
lives of the earliest cells, the protozoa, are regarded 
as but a combination of the sensitive energy of atoms 
of carbon, oxygen, etc., put together by chemical 
force in such a way as to become the protoplasm that 
makes the living cell. Most geologists now believe 
that a much longer time than a hundred million 
years have elapsed since the first living form, the 
cell, was made on the earth. 

All the atoms of carbon, oxygen, etc., put together 
in this way to form the cells of a plant are taken 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 7 

from the carbon dioxide and water and a few other 
substances in the soil and in the air. There is noth- 
ing in the cell except what was in air and water and 
soil. These are transformed by chemical action of 
the plant into oxygen, which goes into the air, and 
into starch, sugar, and other substances in the leaf 
or stem or fruit. This starch, sugar, and other sub- 
stances of the plant are the sole food of animals and 
they are transformed in the bodies of animals by a 
process of slow burning back to carbon dioxide and 
water, which may go to form the cells of another 
plant. Thus the same atoms may pass through the 
cycle from air and soil to plants, thence to animals, 
and back to air and soil again and again. The car- 
bon dioxide and water of air and soil become starch 
and sugar in the plant, and some oxygen of the leaf 
is set free and sunshine or solar energy is stored up. 
It is this energy of the sun stored up in making the 
starch or sugar of the plant which becomes the heat 
and muscular force of the animal. While matter is 
going from air and soil to plant and animal and back 
again, the energy of the sunshine which had been 
taken in by the leaf of the plant is dissipated as the 
heat and muscular force of the animal. The living 
cell, therefore, seems to be but a complex mechanism 
in which all the contained matter, i. e., energy, is 
derived from non-living bodies. That which was air 
and water and soil became the living cell of plants 
and animals. The dust of the earth became grass 
and it also became flesh of bird and beast. 

This in brief is the view which present-day scien- 
tists usually hold, but there is an age-long belief 
among men that the life animating the animals is 
a force that is a special creation and not at all a pro- 
duct of natural law and the attributes of matter. 
This view is still held by a large majority of people. 
Many men distinguished by their attainments in 



8 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

science hold this view, maintaining that life is a spirit 
living along with matter and using matter for its 
purposes. The mind of the higher animals, the fears 
and hopes and loves and hates which dogs and mon- 
keys and other higher animals manifestly have, is 
supposed by the large majority to be the operation 
of a spiritual nature living for a time in the body. 
This belief may be in accord with the truth, but since 
the discovery that the bodies of animals are com- 
posed of cells made of the same chemical elements 
as are the cells composing the bodies of plants, and 
that the cells composing plants have irritability and 
powers of nutrition, reproduction and motion the 
same as those of animals, the conviction has come to 
the trained biologists that all life is fundamentally 
the same and that it is derived from properties inher- 
ent in the nature of the matter organized in the cell. 
They think that the living cell is a magazine of sensi- 
tive energy,and that its peculiar powers which we 
call life are due to a certain relation and interplay 
of the powers of the atoms making the cell. They 
think that the attributes of the atom are such that 
life may be derived from them, and that there is no 
difference in the nature of the atoms of "dead'* and 
''living" matter. This view, like the age-long belief 
it seeks to supplant, is also merely a belief, an opin- 
ion, for every scientific man acknowledges his utter 
ignorance as to what matter and life really are. In 
order that the reader may see for himself that the 
new view is held by many of the most eminent biol- 
ogists the author will present some direct quotations 
from them : 

Prof. E. A. Schaffer in. his address as president of 
the British association in 1913 said: ''The problems 
of life are essentially problems of matter; we can not 
conceive of life in the scientific sense apart from 
matter. The phenomena of life are investigated and 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 9 

can only be investigated by the same methods as all 
other phenomena are. They are governed by laws 
identical with those which govern inanimate matter. 

'The combination of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, 
and other elements into a colloidal compound repre- 
sents the chemical basis of life ; and when the chem- 
ists succeed in building up this compound it will with- 
out doubt be found to exhibit the phenomena which 
we are in the habit of associating with the term life." 

Before a distinguished group of scientists in the 
Johns Hopkins Physical Laboratory, Jan. 20, 1914, 
Dr. L. J. Henderson of Harvard University asserted 
that researches extending over many years had con- 
vinced him that inorganic matter contained latent 
life. He added that he believed that this latent life 
became active under certain conditions. 

Ame Pictet, Professor of Chemistry, University of 
Geneva, said in 1915: "(1) The phenomena of life 
^re dependent upon a special structure of the or- 
ganic molecule; (2) only the disposition of atom^^^ 
in open c:hains: permits the m^intainance and the 
manifestations of life; (3) the cyclic structure iS' 
that of the substances^ which have lost this: faulty;, 
and (4) finally death results, from the chemica-l 
point of view, by a cyclization of the elem^ents^ of the^ 
protoplasm." 

August Forel, a great psychiatrist, slays: "The" 
vital forces have undoubtedly originated from phys-- 
ico-chemical forces. But the ultimate nature of the 
latter and of the atoms is untaowable." 

H. E. Crampton, a biologist of Columbia Univers- 
ity,, says in his Doctrine of Evolution, page 29 : **We 
have seen that the essential substance of a cell is a 
comp^lex chemical 'compound we call protoplasm, 
W^ose elements a;re^ identical with chemical sub- 
stances outside the living world. Is there any ground 
for supposing that the properties of protoplasm are 



10 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

due to any other causes than those which may be 
found in the chemical and physical constitution of 
protoplasm? In brief, is life physics and chemistry? 
Nowadays the majority of biologists believe that it 
is so. The marvelous properties of protoplasm are 
regarded as the inevitable derivatives of the various 
chemical elements which constitute protoplasm. 
Scores of students of physiological chemistry have 
duplicated the chemical processes of living matter, 
which were regarded as so peculiar to the living or- 
ganism that they seemed to be due to the operation 
of a non-mechanical and vital cause. The biologist 
finds himself unable to regard protoplasmic activity 
as anything different in kind and category from the 
processes of physics and chemistry which go in the 
v/orld of dead things." 

Prof. R. K. Duncan, a most able and careful chem- 
ist, says (Harper's Magazine, May, 1909) : 

'*The search has proved unavailing: instead of 
^'living" and ''lifeless" matter there has been found 
— just matter. We have sought for ''life" and we 
have found "law." We have come to the conclusion 
that every bodily action takes place through the 
operation of, and in accordance with, natural laws. 
If by "life" is meant a transcendental entity that acts 
in the place of these laws, or transsects them, there 
is no evidence of its existence in living matter; the 
body is a mechanism through and through. 

"It may be safely said that many, perhaps most, 
men of science — chemists, physiologists, biologists 
and psychologists — believe and teach that there is 
no "life." They believe, and they teach, that all our 
feelings, thinkings and willings, our very conscious- 
ness, are the products of the play of physico-chemi- 
cal processes of the brain." 

Some of the smallest bodies known to us have life. 
These are the bacteria, many of which are disease 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 11 

germs which can be seen only through our highest 
power microscopes. As the germs causing measles, 
scarlet fever and some other contagious diseases 
have not been discovered after thorough search for 
them it is believed that they are small beyond the 
power of any microscope yet made to see. The bac- 
teria are plant life. There are many animals that 
are microscopic, as the Paramecium and other proto- 
zoa. Yet these tiny things, which seem but a com- 
bination of chemical elements, have not only life but 
mind, for they may be observed to change their di- 
rection of movement to get away from hard, cold, 
acid, or very hot objects. They have sensations and 
these must be derived from the sensitivity that char- 
acterizes the electrons that make up the atoms of 
which they are composed. 

This is a hard saying that life on the earth is but 
a new form of the energy found in the insensible 
rock or in the dust of the earth. We know, however, 
that the inorganic world vibrates with sensitive 
energy w^hose ultimate nature is unknown to us, 
with what may be called chemical life, which is resi- 
dent in every atom, resident in every chemical com- 
pound. We know that the atoms were originally en- 
dowed with properties now unknown, which made 
them become gases that fly, liquids that flow, solids 
that formed crystals, and which, it would seem, final- 
ly made them become <iells that have life. The earth 
warmed by the sun seems to be the mother of all the 
living things on her bosom. 

Apparently the powers of living things are a 
natural result of the interrelation and interplay of 
the hidden forces in the very highly complex proto- 
plasmic cell, just as wetness, liquidness, and other 
qualities of water are a natural and not less marvel- 
ous result of the union of two gases, just as saltness 
and the other qualities of salt are a natural result of 



12 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

the chemical union of atoms of a base and an acid, 
sodium and chlorine. All this is beyond our power 
to explain, for we are in utter ignorance as to the 
nature and structure of that of which the atom is 
.composed, the electron. We do not know what the 
electron really is. As cells having life are composed 
entirely of electrons, the latter must have that from 
which life is derived. 

Groups of electrons compose the atoms whose 
union brings into existence all the forms of matter 
with their qualities — the wetness, saltness, explos- 
iveness, life, etc. — qualities which always come and 
go with the union of atoms in a certain way. With 
every new form of matter new qualities come into 
existence ; there was no wetness before water was 
formed. With every new relation of different forms 
of matter to one another new facts appear as a con- 
sequence; there was no rainbow until the eye saw 
the sunshine reflected by falling drops of water, and 
there was no lamplight till the eye saw the lamp, 
the oil, the wick, and a flame put together in a cer- 
tain relation to one another. Indeed, the eye itself 
and all that it sees come into existence only as atoms 
of matter come together in certain relations to one 
another; all things are what they are because of the 
relation of atoms to each other, and, whenever the 
relations are changed, they all go out of existence, 
for 

"When the lamp is shattered. 
The light in the dust lies dead ; 
When the cloud is scattered. 
The rainbow's glory is shed." 

We are made somewhat aware of how vast and 
varied must be the powers and possibilities of the 
atom, and how veiled are the forces hidden in the 
-very dust of the earth and transformed by the pro- 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 13 

cesses of creation, when we observe that matter not 
only has the power to produce living forms, but that 
when living matter is so put together by natural laws 
as to form a brain and its sense organs, a being 
aware of the existence of itself and the world about 
it is thereby created. It makes for itself images of 
the outer world and becomes conscious of its own 
existence. This is one of the most common occur- 
rences in nature, occurring whenever an egg hatches 
into insect or chicken or dog or other animal with 
eyes, ears, and a brain. There is certainly no evi- 
dence that the living matter of the egg has conscious- 
ness; yet, just as we saw take place when dry gases 
by their union produced water with a quality, wet- 
ness, not seen in the atoms which formed it, so con- 
sciousness, a quality not seen in the egg, certainly 
arises when living matter is formed into a body with 
a brain and sense organs. Yet the matter in the 
brain that thinks in insect and bird and beast is the 
same as that which is in the dust and air and water 
of the earth of which they are made. It would seem 
from this fact that all matter is primarily a spirit- 
ual power embodied in units of force which are sensi- 
tive and capable of becoming organized into a brain 
that thinks. The phenomenon is commonplace and 
yet is utterly beyond explanation, for 

''None e'er yet comprehended 
How soul and body wedded are and blended." 

The egg has the energies of its atoms arranged in 
a way that forms what we call life and it grows to be 
like its ancestors. This is true of every cell. Just as 
soon as the matter in the egg arranges itself to form 
a body with a brain and sense organs, it forthwith 
sees and hears and knows the world about it. Its 
conscious mind has come into being. Today we hold 
in our hand an unconscious egg; within :a few days 



14 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

we may hold identically the same matter, neither 
more nor less, but it will have become a chicken, 
with desires and fears, hunger and love, with mem- 
ory and perception — with a conscious mind. Con- 
sciousness has arisen out of the activities of the 
atoms that were unconscious in the living egg. The 
brain has woven the thoughts out of sensations 
caused by impressions made upon the sense organs. 
The consciousness has therefore arisen from the ac- 
tivities of living matter. It is to the brain as the dial 
face is to the clock — an indicator of what is going on 
within, certain processes of the brain always occur- 
ring as certain thoughts come into existence. 

Even the insects have a brain, and they have all 
the senses. Ants and some others are without hear- 
ing. They have, says Forel, ''Memory, associations 
of sensory images, perception, attention, habits, 
simple powers of inference from anology, the utili- 
zation of individual experiences, and distinct, but 
feeble individual deliberations." Ants, bees, and 
wasps certainly communicate ideas to one another. 
They know each other as individuals and as friends 
or enemies. Individuals of the same species differ 
widely from one another in temperament, industry, 
and other qualities. Friends have been known to 
indicate recognition of each other after a separation 
of several months. They are known to imitate 
others. Ants when organized into an army stand 
still while a lost trail is being found and advance by 
signal to battle with another colony whose nest they 
will rob. When an ant's nest has been ruined, some 
ants will go on journeys to find suitable conditions 
for a new nest, and when the place has been found 
the finder will go back to the original nest and seize 
a companion which will permit herself to be carried 
to the newly selected spot. These two will then 
bring two more, the four four more. This process 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 15 

will continue until all have been carried to the newjy 
selected home. Some species of ants, as polyergus 
rufescens, make slaves of other species on which 
they rely for building their nest and the care of their 
young. Bees always distinguish artificial from real 
flowers. Though the effort has often been made to 
make an artificial flower so well that a bee will visit 
it, it has not yet succeeded. The„ queen bee shows 
jealousy of rivals, and kills them all. Such is the 
devotion of the worker bees to the queen that if food 
is scarce they will die of hunger while feeding her. 
Feelings of sympathy, hatred, anger, joy, and de- 
jection after defeat have been proved to exist among 
ants, bees and other insects. They love sweets and 
show objection to bitter things. As these tiny ani- 
mals have brain with sense organs, and give evidence 
of having all the powers of the mind, it seems reason- 
able to conclude that it is the brain which functions 
the conscious thoughts, and that the material of the 
brain is made up of units that are mental in sub- 
stance. 

The following account of the ants taken from The 
Atlantic Monthly, May, 1919, page 604, shows their 
ability to think and act in ways similar to man : 

'The ants are to other insects, says Dr. Forel, 
what man is to other mammals. Their brain sur- 
passes in relative volume and in complication of 
structure that of all other insects. If they do not 
attain the great individual intelligence of the su- 
perior mammals, they are ahead of all animals in 
social instinct. It is not surprising, therefore, that 
their social life resembles in many points that of hu- 
man beings. Like the most advanced human so- 
cieties, theirs are democracies — and warring democ- 
racies. Let us watch them at work. 

''The Ant-State is not confined to the ant-hill : it 
has its territory, its domain, its colonies, and like the 



16 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

colonial powers, its stations of repose and revictual- 
ing. The territory: a meadow, several trees, a hedge. 
The domain of exploitation: the ground and under 
the ground, and the louse-plants — these cattle that 
they milk, care for, and protect. The colonies: other 
nests more or less close to the metropolis and more 
or less numerous (sometimes more than two hun- 
dred), communicating with each other by open roads 
or by subterranean channels. The warehouses : little 
nests or earth-houses for the ants who travel far and 
are tired, or are surprised by bad weather. 

**0f course, these states try to enlarge themselves. 
So they start fighting. The disputes over the land at 
the frontier of the two big ant-hills are the usual 
causes of the most obstinate wars. The louse-plants 
are another real bone of contention. With certain 
species the subterranean domains — ^the roots of 
plants- — are equally important.- Other spedes^ live^ 
exclusively by war and spX)il.. The; Poiyergus^ ruf e&- 
eens. (Huber's: 'Amazon') disdains to work and is:no> 
longer ab-le to do so; it practices slavery, and is^ 
served, cared for, and nourished by its herds of 
slaves^ which expeditionary armies abduct from the- 
neighboring ant-hills in the form of nymphs and- 
cocoons.. 

**War is thus endemic; and all the citizens^ the 
worker-ants, of these democracies are called upon: 
to take part in it. With certain species (Pheidole 
paliidula), the military class is distinct from the; 
worker class; the soldier is exempt from all domestic: 
labors, lives a garrison life,, idle, with nothing to do; 
except during the hours when he must defend the: 
doors with his head. (He is used alsa in the af^ce^ 
of butcher: he cuts up the; prey into: sm^ll pieces;)) 
Nowhere^ does one see chiefs (at least, n<jt: perma- 
nent ones) ; neither kings nor generals. 

"The expeditionary armies of Polyergus rufeseens, 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 17 

which vary in their number from one hundred to two 
thousand ants, obey currents that seem to come from 
little groups scattered here and there, now at the 
head, now^ at the tail. In the midst of a march one 
sees the main body of the army stop abruptly, un- 
decided, immobile, as if paralyzed; then, suddenly, 
the initiative springs from a small nucleus of ants 
who throw themselves upon the others, strike* them 
with their foreheads, start off in a certain direction, 
and carry the rest along. 

"The Formica sanguinea practices clever military 
tactics. It is not the compact mass a la Hindenburg, 
but separate platoons kept constantly in touch with 
each other by couriers. They make no frontal at- 
tack, but try to surprise on the flank, to spy on the 
movements of the enemy, like Napoleon aiming 
through rapid concentration to be the stronger at a 
given point and moment." 

The difference in intelligence between the fish and 
the chicken and between the chicken and the dog 
seems to be owing to differences in the structure and 
size of their brains. The dog has been proved to 
have the same capacity as man to distinguish the 
many thousand colors and tones and odors and 
tastes. He gives plain manifestation of all the emo- 
tions — love, fear, curiosity, joy, hope, and their op- 
posites — acts from imitation, sympathy, and sugges- 
tion, shows affection for offspring, and is capable of 
some reasoning and some loyalty to his master. He 
shows an intimate knowledge of many things about 
him, and understands much that is said and done by 
man. All this seems to be entirely owing to the qual- 
ity, structure and work of his brain. 

Edward Clodd says (Animism, page 12) : 'The 
nature of the apparatus in man and brute is funda- 
mentally identical. Let us summarize the facts about 
that apparatus. We know nothing of mind apart 



18 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

from matter, or of matter apart from mind ; and how 
the passage is effected from nerve-cells to conscious- 
ness in animals and man remains a mystery. But we 
know that advance in intelligence proceeds pari 
passu with increasing complexity of brain-structure. 
This is traceable along the whole series of animals. 
In the invertebrates the brain is a mass of nerve 
gangHa near the head end of the body. The brain 
of an ant is one of the most marvelous atoms of mat- 
ter in the world, perhaps more so than the brain of 
a man. In the lowest vertebrate, the fish, it is very 
small compared with the spinal cord; in reptiles its 
mass increases, and in birds it is still more marked." 
'In all the lower and smaller forms the surface of 
the brain is either smooth or evenly rounded, or ex- 
hibits a few grooves known as ''sulci," which separ- 
ate the ridges or convolutions of the substance of the 
brain. But in the larger mammals these grooves be- 
come extremely numerous, and the intermediate 
convolutions proportionately more complicated, un- 
til in the elephant, the porpoise, the higher apes, 
and man, the cerebral surface appears a perfect 
labyrinth of tortuous foldings. The surface of the 
brain of a monkey exhibits a sort of skeleton map of 
man's, and in the man-like apes the details become 
more and more filled in until it is only in minor char- 
acters that the chimpanzee's or the orang's brain can 
be structurally distinguished from man's (Huxley). 
It follows from this that if any part of the mental 
apparatus is injured or thrown out of gear, the re- 
sult is the same in each case — functional upset or 
suspense. The dog and the horse behave as we be- 
have, nor can this be otherwise, because their sense- 
organs report, of course with vast difference in re- 
sults, to their central nervous systems, the messages 
which are transmitted by the vibrations of the ether- 
eal medium and the air, and, within the limits of 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 19 

their consciousness, they are affected as we are af- 
fected, and their actions ruled accordingly. If there 
is no ground for believing that a dog thinks, neither 
is there any for believing that he feels." 

''Therefore the doctrine of Evolution admits no 
break in the psychical chain w^hich links him to the 
lowest life forms, be these plant or animal. It finds 
1:10 arrest of continuity between the bark of the dog 
and the orations of Demosthenes, or between the 
pulsations of an amoeba and the ecstasies of a saint. 
The verdict of modern psychology is that the mind 
of the animal exhibits substantially the same phe- 
nomena which the human mind exhibits in its early 
stages in the child. This means that the animal has 
as good a right to recogntion as a mind-bearing crea- 
ture, so to speak, as the child ; and if we exclude him 
we should also exclude the child. The ability of a 
dog to do his own thinking is shown in the oft ob- 
seved fact that he will bark furiously at a dirty beg- 
gar but will let a well-dressed man pass him without 
opposition." 

The dogs and other beasts cannot use words and 
sentences for the reason that the making of words 
and sentences depends on the activity of certain 
centers in the brain and certain muscles in the throat 
which are not present in these animals; but though 
a beast cannot construct a sentence it may under- 
stand the meaning of one uttered repeatedly to him 
and associated with the act or the object symbolized 
by the words. This is especially true of the dog and 
the apes. The beast can act out a complete idea as 
clearly as man can phrase it in words. For instance, 
an ape will extend its hand for an apple and offer a 
leaf or stick in exchange for it. The parrot can re- 
peat an entire sentence, for it has the speech center 
in the brain and the muscles in the throat necessary 
for utterance, but its understanding of the meaning 



20 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

of words is far below that of the dog and the ape. 

A dog's devotion to his master, his loyalty and 
gratitude is a fact beyond all doubt; and as these 
are the qualities which in the far higher intelligence 
of man enable him to worship the unseen Power 
who lives throughout the universe and from whom 
all blessings flow — in short, to have religious ideas 
and emotions, the dog's loyalty and gratitude may 
be regarded as the qualities which in man enable 
him to have religion. Worship in man is comprised 
of prayer and praise. When a dog ''begs" he prays, 
and when he licks his chops and wags his tail in re- 
turn for a bone he renders praise and thanks to his 
master. 

We see that all the higher animals begin life as 
an egg, a living sensitive cell, which gives us then no 
evidence of having any mind or consciousness; but 
as there develops out of this cell a being conscious 
of itself and the world about it, it seems reasonable 
to say that consciousness develops out of qualities 
or forces inherent in the egg-cell. Just as rough 
sand may when melted become a mirror which re- 
flects the objects about it, so the egg by a process of 
growth and rearrangement of the sensitive material 
composing it becomes an animal which is conscious 
of sensations of heat, light, sound, and the objects 
about it. Of this process which baflies all effort at 
explanation. Prof. Edward Grant Conklin says 
(Heredity and Environment, p. 75) : 

"The most complex of all psychic phenomena, in- 
deed one which includes many, if not all, the others, 
is consciousness. Like every other psychic process, 
this has undergone development in each of us; we 
not only came out of a state of unconsciousness but 
through several years we were gradually acquiring 
consciousness by a process of development. Whether 
consciousness is the sum of all the psychic faculties. 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 21 

or is a new product dependent upon the interaction 
of the other faculties, it must pass through many 
stages in the course of its development, stages which 
would be commonly counted as unconscious or sub- 
conscious states, and complete consciousness must 
depend upon the complete development and activity 
of the other faculties, particularly associative 
memory and intelligence. The question is sometimes 
asked whether germ cells, and indeed all living 
things, may not be conscious in some vague manner. 
One might as well ask whether water is present in 
hydrogen and oxygen. Doubtless the elements out 
cf which consciousness develops are present in the 
germ-cells, in the same sense that the elements of 
the other psychic processes or of the organs of the 
body are there present; not as a miniature of the 
adult condition, but rather in the form of elements 
or factors, which by a long series of combinations 
and transformations, due to inter-actions with one 
another and with the environment, give rise to the 
fully developed condition. 

'The continuity of consciousness is associated with 
the continuity of organization, especially in certain 
parts of the brain. Certain injuries or diseases of 
the brain which bring about the destruction of cer- 
tain centers or association tracts may cause perma- 
nent loss of consciousness. 

"It is an interesting fact that in man and in several 
other animals which may be assumed to have a 
sense of identity, the nerve cells, especially those of 
the brain, cease dividing at an early age, and these 
identical cells persist throughout the remainder of 
life. If nerve cells continued to divide throughout 
life, as epithelial cells do, there would be no such 
persistence of identical cells, and one is free to 
speculate that in such cases there would be no per- 
sistence of the sense of identity." 



22 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

Though it seems to be unconscious, the plant's 
life is, as said before, essentially the same as that of 
the animals, both being composed of similar units, 
protoplasmic cells. The plant requires the same 
food elements as the animal, and, like the animal, 
it is sensitive to the changing about it. The plant 
may be said to have a rudimentary nervous system, 
long sensitive fibers often reaching from one part of 
the body to another, and certain apparently pur- 
poseful changes often taking place in the plant that 
enable it to secure some advantage, to get better 
light, temperature, moisture, position, etc. There 
is abundant evidence to prove that plants are sensi- 
tive to these and some other things of their sur- 
roundings. The following facts are sufficient to 
show this sensitiveness to be a real feature in the life 
of every plant: 

The growing stem of a plant will turn its apex 
slowly toward the source of light, and the root will 
change its direction to grow away from the light into 
the darkness. Leaves will grow so as to place them- 
selves across the path of a beam of light. Germinat- 
ing seedlings feel direction and gravity, for the stem's 
strive to grow vertically upwards, and the roots 
strive to grow vertically downwards. If the stem is 
bent, the roots and limbs will so grow as to balance 
their weight about the base of the stem. When 
some hard body comes in contact with the tip of a 
root, the growing part of the root curves, taking the 
young tip away from the hard body and giving it a 
new direction of growth. Tendrils on touching a 
hard body so modify their direction of growth as to 
twine around it. Certain flowers are so sensitive to 
light that they open and close daily, and some turn 
around daily with reference to the sun. If one 
pinches or strikes the leaf of a mimosa tree, he may 
observe the leaf quickly droop and the leaflets come 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 



23 



so close together that their upper surfaces touch. As 
darkness approaches, the leaves and leaflets of many 
plants droop and close, as for instance, the Demo- 
dium Gyrans, known as the telegaph plant. The 
plants that live by trapping insects are peculiarly 
sensitive; for instance the Venus fly-trap of the 
Carolinas and Florida, and the Droserae, which are 
scattered widely over the earth. 




Fig. 1 



The Venus Fly Tjiap 



Under ordinary conditions, the end of 
t?ie leaf is spread out flat as in position a. 
The edges of the leaf are toothed; the 
inside is covered with hair-like projections. 
If these projections are touched lightly, 
ias with a straw, the leaf slowly- folds 
together as in 6, and finally as inc. If a 
small insect crawls on the leaf, hc is shut 
within. The plant absorbs food from his 
decaying body; after some days the leaf 
opens again and the thin shell of his body 
is all that remains. 

From ConUin's Heredity and Environment 

Thus, though the plant is not aware of self and 
surroundings, as is an animal when awake, it has all 



24 TH EMAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

the sensitivity that an animal has when asleep. It 
is alive with the same life, but it apparently lacks 
consciousness. 

As each cell or egg is an electric battery generat- 
ing electric discharges by the chemical changes tak- 
ing place within it, the life-force seems to be derived 
from electric force. Some of the cells are nerve cells, 
and when these are so united as to become a brain, 
images of the outer world are made by sensations 
that come through the sense organs of sight, sound, 
etc. The life then comes into possession of aware- 
ness of the outer world and of self. Because of these 
facts the individual mind seems to be derived from 
powers possessed by a certain combination of living 
cells, and the life of the cells seems to be a derivative 
of powers inherent in the electrons that compose the 
atoms that compose the cell. 

If this is true, the electron is a thing that has the 
basis of life and mind as well as a body ; it is spiritual 
as well as physical. We know that it is sensitive to 
the presence of other electrons and to lines of mag- 
netic force. It is always in motion and it will always 
choose the best conductor and the shortest distance 
offered it. Further than this and the fact that it is 
always of the same size and physical force we know 
nothing of the nature of the electron. 

The facts above stated, however, seem to justify 
the conclusion that life and mind are developed 
from qualitites inherent in the nature of the electron. 
Its sensitivity and activity are those out of which the 
feeling, acting and thinking of the chicken, bird and 
dog are developed. Its sensitivity seems to be the 
source of sensations in the individual mind of the 
animals, a generalized feeling of which seeing, hear- 
ing, touching, tasting, smelling are specialized deriv- 
atives; but because all our experiences are confined 
to the special sensations of sight, hearing, touch. 



THE MAK!?^G OF LIVING THINGS 25 

smell, and taste, it seems impossible for us to imagine 
what the general sensitivity of the electron is like. 
The electron is, in this view, the source of life and 
mind as well as a unit of mass and force. If this is 
true, the universe is primarily spiritual. This is what 
Virgil meant by the lines in Aeneid VI : 

**One life through all the immense creation runs. 
One Spirit is the moon's, the sea's the sun's ; 
All forms in the air that fly, on the earth that 

creep, 
And the unknown nameless monsters of the deep, 
Each breathing thing obeys one mind's control. 
And in all substance is a single Soul." 

In this view all nature is the embodiment of a liv- 
ing spiritual power, the immanent God. The Bible 
truly tells us in Ecclesiastes 111:20, ''All are of the 
dust and unto dust return again." 



26 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 



EPOCH. 




SVSTEK 


QUAT«RNA«V. 


«3^ 

1» 


RectHT . . 

PLIOCeNE 


Testiart 


II. 


Miocene. 


Of 






Cainozoic. 


*ia 


Eocene . . 




9' 


Cretaceous 


SrCONDARV 


& 


JORASSIC or 

Oolitic . 



TYPICAL FOSSILS. 



7. Triassic. 
& Permian 



J 13- 








5. CARBONirCUOV 


Primary 


4. Devonian . 


and 

Eozoic. 






3. Silurian . 




z Causrian . 




I. Laurentmn 



-_ J 








f^^-s^^ 



-?^„ f^r^'^ 




Man 

Mammoth 

Manlike Apes 

\\ ooUy Quadrupeds 

Whales 

Horses 

Monkeys 

Ance.-rorof 

Modern Mammals 
Nuramu.ites 
Bony-Skeletoned Fish 

Oaks, Maples 

Cover Seeded Plants 

Birds 

Bifd-Reptiles 
Mammals [small] 

Pines 

Firs 

Palm* 

8ea-Lizards 

Reptiles. Cy cads- 
Land Vertebrates 
Horse-tails 
Ferns 

Fishes 

Lowest Vertebrate 
Huge Crustaceans 

Insects 
Ostracoderms 
Sea Scorpions 

Trilobites 

Club-mosses 

Shell-fish 

sponfees 
corals 
c:rustaceans 
Sea-weed [Algae] 

Stratified Rock 
Without fossils 



Table ok Stratified Rocks. 



The above table taken by consent from Clodd's Primer of 
Evolution (Longman, Green & Co.) gives a fairly correct im- 
pression of the strata and the first appearance of typical 
plants and animals. An impression of the time necessary to 
make all the layers of rocks may be inferred from the fact 
that the Tertiary Age required five million years. 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 27 

CHAPTER II. 

Life Changes Its Forms 

The cell, the first form of life, is the unit of life, 
and it is usually so small that it requires a microscope 
to see it. Every tissue of every plant and animal is 
formed of cells, which are but structures made by 
nature to collect and discharge the energy in the 
protoplasm that composes them. Some of the cells 
grouped into colonies, that is, lived together, and 
thus there began the series of many-celled plants, 
which evolved into ever higher forms — through bac- 
teria and algae to ferns, through ferns to the flower- 
ing plants that now cover the face of the earth with 
their green leaves and beautiful forms. Certain 
cells became animal cells. These had formed the 
habit of absorbing the protoplasm made by other 
cells and thereby lost the power to make their own 
protoplasm, a power which depends on the possess- 
ion of a green coloring matter (chlorophyl), whose 
origin is unknown. 

These, too, in the course of time grouped into col- 
onies that lived together and were dependent on one 
another, and thus there began the series of many- 
celled animals, which also evolved into ever more 
complex forms — through such lowly forms as the 
one-celled amoeba to the many-celled animals, the 
worms, insects, fishes, serpents, birds and mammals, 
the evolution proceeding always to forms with a 
better adaptation to the environment, till the form 
of man was reached, the climax, so far, of evolution. 
This evolution of living matter has been in progress 
above a hundred million years, for we find fossils of 
forms of life in strata of rocks which were laid as 
sediment in the oceans as long ago as that, the oldest 



28 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 




J. g 



C S 



O 2. 
> O 
^ 0) 



Oh k- 









; p 
^ P' 



c 
-s i; M 



Z Sec 



5^P 



a; 35 C 
S S ,^ 






o 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 29 

rocks laid containing the simplest, least complex 
forms. We find that the fossils of crustaceans and 
molluscs always appear in strata of rocks laid be- 
fore the strata that contain the forms of animals 
next higher, the fishes. The fishes are always found 
in strata below those that contain the amphibians 
and serpents, and these latter are found below strata 
containing fossils of birds and mammals. 

The earliest known bird, the most ancient feath- 
ered winged thing, is the archaeopteryx, which is 
found as fossil in the rocks of the chalk period, the 
last of the Mesozoic Age. In size it was about like 
our crow, but it had teeth and a tail like a reptile. 
This was probably the progenitor of all the ten 
thousand species of birds now living. There are also 
found in the chalk period and the triassic and Juras- 
sic periods just before the chalk period the progeni- 
tor of all the species of mammals now living. This, 
the dromatherium, is, like the archaeopteryx, long 
ago extinct, but its fossil remains show it to have 
been an animal about the size of a mouse, utterly in- 
significant in size as compared with the tremendous 
reptiles that then swam in the seas, walked on the 
land, or flew through the air (pterodactyls). Be- 
tween its scales grew hairs and its teeth were dis- 
tinctly different from those of the reptiles. This lit- 
tle animal remained small and insignificant long 
ages but developed into forms which in the geologic 
ages above the chalk strata, the eocene of the Caen- 
ozoic (recent life), became the ancestor of all the 
modernized mammals, the cat, horse, dog, etc. 

It was during the chalk period that trees like the 
willow, the beech, the poplar and sassafras, that 
could lose their leaves in cold weather, came into 
existence. During previous ages all plants were 
evergreen, for warm and moist atmosphere covered 
the earth from pole to pole and made possible the 



30 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

dense growth of immense ferns and clubmosses which 
made the coal measures. The climatic conditions of 
the chalk era of the Mesozoic Age came to be more 
nearly like those of the present, and the reptiles, 
which could not be active in cold weather, because 
their blood would grow cold with their surroundings, 
diminished in numbers and in size. Now they are few 
and insignificant and live mainly in the tropics. The 
feathers of the birds and their persistently warm 
blood (105 to 110 degrees) and the hair of the mam- 
mals and their persistently warm blood (981/2 de- 
grees) enabled them to live in climates that were 
sometimes very cold. As a result, while the reptiles 
were dying out or becoming smaller, their feathered 
and hairy cousins grew more numerous and larger. 
Lizards once seventy feet long became extinct or 
dwindled away in size to their descendants now seen. 
Mammals during this time have formed about six 
thousand species and many of them have large bod- 
ies. The whale, for instance, once a hairy land 
quadruped but now adapted to life in the ocean, is 
the largest animal that has ever lived on the earth. 
As the earth developed its diversified conditions of 
cold and warm, marsh-land and dry-land, upland 
and lowland, forms of birds and mammals would 
change correspondingly till they were fitted to live 
in their various habitats. In the later part of the 
period forms of birds and beasts began to assume 
shapes found in the eocene strata above, where we 
find, as has been stated, fossil remains of animals 
now known to be the ancestors of all the great fam- 
ilies of mammals, the cat, horse, hog, dog, etc. Bones 
of lemurs, the lowest form of monkey, are found in 
eocene strata computed to have been laid three mil- 
lions of years ago ; bones of manlike apes, (gibbons, 
orangoutangs, gorillas, and chimpanzees) appear 
in Miocene strata laid one million years ago. Geolo- 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 



31 




Carnivorous dinosaur (Allosaurus) of the Upper Jurassic period of 
Nortli America. The skeleton was found nearlj^ complete" in Wyoming. 
Near it was discovered a portion of the slceleton of a giant herbivorous 
dinosaur (Brontosaurus) It was observed tliat ten of tlie caudal vertebrae 
of the latter skeleton bore tooth marks and grooves corresponding exactly 
with the sharp-pointed teeth in the jaw of the carnivorous dinosaur. 

By consent of Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition. 

gists estimate that it has been about five hundred 
thousand years since the pliocene strata were laid 
in which the bones of man first appear. 

The thickness of the earth-crust composing the 
various strata of sedimentary rocks and the amount 



32 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

of their elevated surfaces worn away by water and 
ice and wind and frost make with certain other facts 
reliable though rough guides by which to estimate 
the length of time since forms of life now found as 
fossils were laid in the strata on the earth's surface. 
Basing their calculations on the observed rate of 
these processes, geologists estimate the length of 
time that has elapsed since the early mammals, the 
ancestors of modern mammals, came into existence 
as not less than three millions nor more than six mil- 
lions of years. This is known in geology as the Caen- 
ozoic Age, and as this is estimated to be one- 
twentieth of the whole time since the first fossil- 
bearing rocks were laid, we get the hundred million 
years stated above as the probable length of time 
since life appeared on the earth. As stated, most re- 
cent geologists believe that a far greater length of 
time than this has elapsed since the first living form 
came into existence. 

All the evolution of forms of life from the simple 
cell of a hundred million years ago into the fish and 
the higher forms since — some becoming extinct, 
others persisting till the present age, when we cata- 
logue six hundred thousand living species of animals 
and five hundred thousand living species of plants — 
all this evolution of forms of life has been the work 
of the laws of nature which achieve every phase of 
this ever changing universe. The new forms have 
come into being sometimes by sudden leaps, some- 
times by gradual changes, but always and every- 
where as the result of a natural process, of the forces 
of heredity and environment. 

A change in the environment may affect the 
growth of parts of an individual, even the structure 
of the germ cells, and those advantageous varieties 
of his form that are inherited by him and trans- 
mitted to descendants will make his line persist. 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 33 

while those forms that are without adaptation to 
the environment will become extinct. The forces of 
heredity are organized in the egg or seed, which 
must grow into the size, shape, parts, color, and 
mental traits of its own ancestry, and in going from 
the egg to the adult stage it must grow into every 
form in the line of development through which its 
own ancestry passed. All the insects, for instance, 
now pass in the life of each individual from the egg, 
one-celled stage, into a worm before they become the 
flies, crickets, grasshoppers, bees, ants, etc., which 
they are as adult forms. This is because it was from, 
worms that the insects evolved; because the adult 
stage of their ancestry was once worms. Man, to take 
another instance, begins his individual life as one 
cell, an egg, which grows into forms of fish, amphib- 
ian, and hairy mammal in his mother's womb before 
he becomes the form of man he has at birth. Even 
after his birth he has in his body organs now useless 
which were useful to his ancestry of lowlier form of 
life — ^the membrane used for wiping off the eye, 
called the third eyelid and plainly to be seen as 
folded at the angle formed by the junction of the 
eyelids near the nose, the pineal body in the lower 
middle part of the brain which is the rudiment of 
an eye that was in the head of a fish ancestor, the 
appendix in the abdomen, so often the cause of 
death, which was to some ancestor of lower stage a 
useful organ of digestion, as it now is in the rabbit 
and other animals, the muscles for moving the ear 
and the skin, the series of small bones at the end of 
the spinal column, and other structures now deca- 
dent in man's body. The chick, to take still another 
instance, when taken from an egg incubated for 
three days, is found to be strictly like the fish in 
many respects. It has gill slits and gill arches and 
entire circulatory system and brain that is fishlike 



34 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

in form and structure. These instances show be- 
yond a doubt that from ovum to adult we trace forms 
of ancestry. 

Conklin, in ''Heredity and Environment," says: 
**One of the greatest and most far-reaching themes 
which has ever occupied the minds of men is the 
problem of development. Whether it be the de- 
velopment of an animal from an egg, of a race or 
species from a pre-existing one, or of the body, 
mind and institutions of man, this problem is every- 
where much the same in fundamental principles, 
and knowledge gained in one of these fields must be 
of value in each of the others. Ontogeny, the life 
history of the individual, and phylogeny, the life his- 
tory of the ancestral line, are not wholly distinct 
phenomena, but are only two aspects of the one 
general process of organic development. The evo- 
lution of races and of species is sufficiently rare and 
unfamiliar to attract much attention and serious 
thought, while the development of an individual is a 
phenomenon of such universal occurrence that it is 
taken as a matter of course by most people — some- 
thing so evident that it seems to require no explana- 
tion; but familiarity with the fact of development 
does not remove the mystery which lies back of it, 
though it may make plain some of the many pro- 
cesses concerned. The development of a human be- 
ing, of a personality, from a germ cell is the climax 
of all wonders — greater even than that involved in 
the evolution of species or in the making of a world." 

''The fertilized egg fuses with no other cells, it 
takes into itself no living substance from without, 
but manufactures its own protoplasm from food 
substances; it receives food and oxygen from with- 
out and it gives out carbonic acid and other waste 
products, it is sensitive to certain alterations in the 
environment such as thermal, chemical and electri- 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 35 

cal changes — it is, in short, a distinct living thing, 
an individuality. Under proper environmental con- 
ditions this fertilized egg cell develops, step by step, 
without the addition of anything from without ex- 
cept food, water, oxygen, and such other raw mater- 
ials as are necessary to the life of any adult animal, 
into the immensely complex body of a starfish, a frog 
or a man. At the same time, from the relatively 
simple reactions and activities of the fertilized egg 
there develops, step by step, without the addition of 
anything from without except raw materials and 
environmental stimuli, the multifarious activities, 
reactions, instincts, habits and intelligence of the 
mature animal." 

"Is not this miracle of development more wonder- 
ful than any possible miracle of creation? And yet 
as one watches this marvelous process by which the 
fertilized egg grows into the embryo, and this into 
the adult each step appears relatively simple, each 
perceptible change is minute, but the changes are 
innumerable and unceasing, and in the end they ac- 
complish this miracle of transforming the fertilized 
egg cell into the fish, or frog, or man — a thing 
which would be incredible were it not for the fact 
that it has been seen by hundreds of observers and 
can be verified at any time by those who will take 
the trouble to study the process for themselves." 

Changes in the environment or within the body of 
an individual may produce changes in the egg which 
will make variations from his form in his descend- 
ants, and if the new forms are better fitted to live in 
the environment they become permanent varieties 
in the plant or animal world, the less adapted forms 
becoming extinct in competition with them for food 
and place. 

Thus the form of every animal and plant is a 
growth from forces in the egg or seed and is an ad- 



36 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

justment to its method of living — the activities neces- 
sary to get food, the needed quality and quantity of 
food, the air, the soil, the water, the heat, the light 
and the other things needed from its environment. 

Thus heredity and environment are the tvv^in crea- 
tors of all forms of all living things upon the earth ; 
thus the natural laws which moulded the earth into 
a sphere have shaped the form and made the quali- 
ties of every living thing upon its surface. Thus in- 
stead of all the varied forms of life now on earth 
being independent special creations, they are lineal 
descendants from other forms that existed in pre- 
vious geologic ages, all of which forms were them- 
selves derived from the simple cells created by 
natural processes many millions of years ago. The 
struggle for life b3^ all born to every species has re- 
sulted in the natural extinction of those poorly en- 
dowed and the natural survival of those born with 
superior qualities of body and mind. This natural 
selection worked for the good of each succeeding 
generation and so for the good of each being that 
now lives. And instead of concluding that the varied 
forms of life now on earth are the final and finished 
creations of God, the facts lead us to believe that 
the highest forms now existing will have in distant 
futurity descendants endowed yet more highly and 
in different ways. What these higher powers and 
better forms will be we can not foretell, any more 
than monkeys could foresee the coming of apes and 
man, but it seems reasonable to believe that the now 
dominant types of the most common and widely 
spread species will furnish the parent stocks for the 
improved forms. 

There is, as Darwin said sixty years ago, **a grand- 
eur in this view of life, with its several powers hav- 
ing been originally breathed by the Creator into a 
few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 37 

has gone cycling on according to the fixed law ox 
gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms 
most beautiful and most wonderful have been and 
are being evolved." 

Fifty years after Darwin, the president of the 
American Society for the advancement of science 
expressed the same view as follows: ''You nor I, 
I dare say, will hesitate to maintain that the primor- 
dial amoeba (if we may so dub the earliest of our 
ancestors) embodied in some sense or other all the 
potentialities, for better or for worse, that are real- 
ized before us at this moment." 

John Burroughs, in Yale Review, October, 1914, 
says: "In the light of what he knows of the past 
history of the earth, the man of science sees with 
his mind's eye the successive changes that have 
taken place in it; he sees the globe a mass of incan- 
descent matter rolling through space; he sees the 
crust cooling and hardening; he sees the waters ap- 
pear, the air and soil appear, he sees the clouds be- 
gin to form and the rain to fall, he sees living things 
appear in the waters, then upon the land, and in the 
air; he sees the two forms of life arise, the vegetable 
and the animal, the latter standing upon the former; 
he sees more and more complex forms of both vege- 
table and animal arise and cover the earth. They 
all appear in the course of the geologic ages on the 
surface of the earth; they arise out of it; they are a 
part of it; they come naturally; no hand reaches 
down from heaven and places them there ; they are 
not an addendum; they are not a sudden creation; 
they were potential in the earth before they arose 
out of it. The earth ripened, her crust mellowed, 
and thickened, her airs softened and cleared, her 
waters were purified, and in due time her finer fruits 
were evolved, and, last of all, man arose. It was all 
one process. There was no miracle, no first day of 



38 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

creation. Brooded by the sun, the earth hatched 
her offspring; the promise and the potency of all 
terrestrial life was in the earth herself; her womb 
was fertile from the first. All that we call the spirit- 
ual, the divine, the celestial, were hers, because man 
is hers. Our religions and our philosophies and our 
literatures are hers ; man is a part of the whole sys- 
tem of things ; he is hers as the rains, the dews, the 
flowers, the rocks, the soil, the trees, are hers. He 
appeared when the time was ripe, and he will dis- 
appear when the time is over-ripe. He is of the same 
stuff as the ground he walks upon ; there is no better 
stuff in the heavens above him, nor in the depths be- 
low him, than sticks to his own ribs. The celestial 
and the terrestrial forces unite and work together 
in him, as in all other creatures. We can not magni- 
fy man without magnifying the universe of which 
he is a part; and we can not belittle it without be- 
littling him.*' 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 39 

CHAPTER III. 

The Forms of Life 



After the earth's crust had hardened and the 
gases of hydrogen and oxygen above it in the prim- 
ordial atmosphere and within it in the vapor from 
hot springs had so combined as to form the water 
that became oceans, rivers, etc., there came a time 
when the conditions at some place forced certain 
materials to combine in such a way as to form a liv- 
ing organism, a cell, a microscopic individual, float- 
ing in the water and absorbing certain chemical 
compounds found in the water and the soil about it, 
thus repairing the loss and waste of substance due 
to its activities. This cell ever and anon divided it- 
self, so that one cell became two cells. It is probable 
that this birth of the cell took place on the conti- 
nents, either in the moist crevices of rocks or soils 
in the fresh waters of continental pools, or in the 
slightly saline waters of the bordering primordial 
seas. This first of living things (and still the first 
stage of everything living, for the egg is but a cell) 
was composed of ten of the eighty-three elements 
whose atoms compose everything on the earth or in 
the heavens. These ten elements— carbon, hydro- 
gen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, iron, etc. — are com- 
bined in such a way as to make the cell which has 
those properties called life. These elements — car- 
bon, oxygen, etc. — are constantly being taken in by 
the living cell from the world about it, and, after 
being used in the making of the life force, they re- 
turn to the inorganic world from which they had 
been taken Some animals, like the amoeba, are 
made of only one cell ; some plants are made of only 



40 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 




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Id 


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THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 41 

one cell, as yeast and bacteria; but most animals 
and plants are composed of billions of cells, which 
are combined in such a way as to make their tissues 
and organs. A man is composed of about four 
hundred billion cells, the cells forming the different 
organs and tissues being of different shapes and 
qualities. There are more than five billion cells in 
his brain. 

As has been said, there are ten elements always 
in every living cell, and this is true whether the cell 
be that of a plant or of an animal. These elements 
are carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, iron, sulphur, potas- 
sium, magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, and nitro- 
gen. Without each and all these combined in a cell, 
which usually is of microscopic size, there is no life. 
The cell must have originally been formed in water, 
probably in the pores of well-watered soil. By com- 
bination of cells larger and higher forms of life came 
into being. Later the plant came to grow in soil and 
air, taking carbon and oxygen and the other ele- 
ment from the soil in water absorbed by its roots. 
The nitrogen, phosphorus, etc., now composing the 
cells must have been in the soil about the roots and 
dissolved in the water. The action of purely natural 
laws makes from these ten elements a structure 
called a cell, which feels and strives for warmth and 
light and food and which divides to become two 
cells. 

The unit of life, then, is the cell, which is a single 
mass of living matter with a central portion called a 
nucleus. Every plant and animal is either one cell 
or a colony of cells; every tissue of bone and muscle 
and nerve of the highest animal is composed of cells; 
the first stage in the life history of the highest ani- 
mal is a cell (egg). 

Since 1838, when Theodor Schwann discovered 
that all the plants and animals are composed of cells. 



42 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 



each of which is a living unit with its own nucleus, 
every possible effort has been made to find its na- 
ture and structure. From this research the follow- 
ing facts have been discovered : 

Each cell is a tiny individual mass of protoplasm 
with its own nucleus. Though the nucleus is made 
of protoplasm it differs chemically and structurally 
from the rest of the cell and contains certain bodies 
called chromosomes (color-bearing bodies), which, 
in the seed or eggy are now known to carry the de- 
terminers of the form into which it will grow by a 
process of repeated division whenever the seed or 
egg is fertilized by the appropriate pollen or semen. 
These color-bearing bodies, the chromosomes, bear 
the specific energies which force the seed or egg to 
develop into the qualities of the parents, determin- 
ing the seed of the apple to become an apple tree 
like its parent, the egg of the chicken to become a 
chicken like its parent. The chromosomes are not 
only carriers of the hereditary qualities, but there 
is an "accessory chromosome" that determines sex. 
When a sperm cell unites with egg the latter begins 
to grow. When the cell grows to a certain size, it 




The cell, showing changes in the nucleus in several 
stages befere it becomes two cells. 

divides or splits so as to become two cells, the nu- 
cleus dividing first and each of the chromosomes 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 43 

c?plitting lengthwise, so that each of the daughter 
cells has its own chromosomes that determine its 
further growth. This wonderful process, known as 
fission, is shown in its different stages in the dia- 
gram, in which we see the chromosomes of the nu- 
cleus of the fertilized egg cell (A) rearrange them- 
selves in B, C, D, and E, and divide into two separate 
cells in F. 

As the cell is both the unit of life and the basis of 
heredity, securing the latter by the division of the 
nucleus in which there are material particles that 
determine the growth and the development to be 
similar to that of the ancestry, the author begs the 
reader's indulgence for continuing yet farther a dis- 
cussion of it in this brief treatise. Only those who 
know something of the cell can have any conception 
of the world of living things. 

In the figure presented of the cell we see the dif- 
ferent stages of the process by which one cell divides 
to become two, and we can see in the nucleus a rough 
sketch of what a very high power microscope shows 
to the observer, to wit: the chromosomes, which are 
made up of the infinitesimal particles that are deter- 
miners of the course of development that leads to 
an adult form similar to that of the ancestry. The 
chromosomes contain the infinitesimal bodies of 
energy, the inheritance units, that determine the 
tallness, color of skin, species, structure of brain, 
hair, eyes, etc , of the adult form. One of these 
chromosomes is known to determine what sex the 
organism will be. Conklin (op. cita) says: 

"Every cell in the body comes from a preceding 
cell by a process of division, and germ cells are 
formed by a division of preceding cells which are 
derived from the fertilized egg. The hen does not 
produce the egg, but the egg produces the hen and 
also the other eggs. Individual traits are not trans- 



44 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 



mitted from the hen to the egg, but they develop 
out of germinal factors which are carried along from 
cell to cell, and from generation to generation." 




Fig. 10. Successive Stages in the Cleavage and Gastrulation of AmpMoxus. 
A, one cell ; B, two cells ; C and D, four cells ; E, eight cells ; F, sixteen cells ; O, 
Jblastula stage of about ninety-six cells ; H, section through the same showing the 
cleavage cavity ; /, blastula seen from the left side showing three zones of cells, viz., 
an upper clear zone of ectoderm, a middle (faintly shaded) zone of mesoderm and a 
lower (deeply shaded) zone of entoderm cells; 

From Conklin's Heredity avd Environment. 

The cells are of various shapes and sizes. Each 
tissue of the plant and animal has its cells shaped 
differently from the other tissues; and as to size, 
though some few cells are large enough to be seen 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 45 

with the naked eye, almost all of them are micro- 
scopic. Some cells ,the bacteria, are so minute that 
several million of them may be placed on the period 
mark used in the punctuation of this page. No mat- 
ter how minute the cell, it is composed of proto- 
plasm, and always has the same four qualities of 
sensibility, motion, growth, and reproduction. The 
combination of these qualities is what we call ''life." 
The diverse shapes and sizes of the plants and 
animals now living in the world may be realized as 
we read from Huxley's 'The Physical Basis of Life" 
the following: 'Think of the microscopic fungus — 
a mere infinitesimal ovoid particle — which finds 
space and duration enough to multiply into count- 
less millions in the body of a living fly; and then of 
the wealth of foliage, the luxuriance of flower and 
fruit, which lies between this bald sketch of a plant 
and the giant pine of California, towering to the di- 
mensions of a cathedral spire, or the Indian fig, 
which covers acres with its profound shadow, and 
endures while nations and empires come and go 
round its vast circumference. Or, turning to the 
other half of the world of life, picture to yourselves 
the great finner whale, hugest of beasts that live or 
have lived, disporting his enormous length (eighty 
or ninety feet) of bone, muscle and blubber, with 
easy roll, among the waves in which the stoutest 
ship that ever left the dockyard would flounder help- 
lessly; and contrast him with the invisible animal- 
cules — mere gelatinous specks, multitudes of which 
could, in fact, dance upon the point of a needle. 
With these images before your mind, you may well 
ask what community lof form or structure there is 
between the animalcule and the whale or between 
the fungus and the fig-tree?" The answer is that 
each is composed of living cells and that all living 
cells are composed of protoplasm. 



46 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

The protoplasm is now known to be composed of 
three chemical compounds, protein, carbohydrate, 
and hydro-carbon, in which are found carbon, hydro- 
gen, oxygen and nitrogen ; and relatively small quan- 
tities of phosphorus, common salt, calcium, magnes- 
ium, potassium, and iron. All the properties of the 
living cell seem to be due to the combination of the 
three compounds, protein, carbohydrate, and hydro- 
carbon, into protoplasm, "the physical basis of life/' 
It is so highly complex and unstable that the chem- 
ists have, not yet been able to make out a complete 
description of its structure, or even a complete 
formula of it as a compound. 

Two facts seem to indicate the fundamental same- 
ness of all life; first, that no life is found except 
along with a cell made of protop:asm, and second, 
all protoplasm, whether in plants or in animals, is 
the same in appearance. It is always colorless, al- 
ways liquid, always nearly transparent, and always 
resembles the white of an egg in thickness. Living 
protoplasm has, however, the remarkable ability to 
behave differently under different conditions even 
though it is always the same. It is the protoplasm 
in the tip of the stem of a plant that makes it bend 
toward the light, and it is the protoplasm in the tip 
of the root of a plant that makes it grow from the 
light. It is the activity of protoplasm which makes 
such widely different things as sugar, fat, perspir- 
ation, and the material in the shells of oysters, 
clams, etc. It will move from the extremes of heat 
and cold. It will move toward an object of like 
temperature and like chemical composition with it- 
self. 

As already stated, the earliest and lowest form of 
a living thing was the cell, which floated, fed and 
reproduced itself in the water. From this earliest 
living individual have come all the complex and 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 47 

varied forms that we have on the earth — all the 
plants and animals that made up the myriads that 
have come into being and ceased to be except as 
fossils in the rocks here and there, and those other 
myriads that now teem the ocean and cover the 
plains and mountains with their sensitive bodies. 
From the cell to the most complex of these forms, 
from protozoon to man, we trace in successive layers 
of rock the rise of new kinds of plants and animals 
in lineal descent from similar and simpler forms 
that preceded them. In this historic sequence we are 
now able to see the main road which the creation of 
living things has traveled from protozoon to man; 
as also we are able to see the many roads that 
branched from it to become insect or bird or beast. 
This grand view of creation which has come from his 
study of forms of fossil life found in the rocks, as 
well as those forms that now live, is one of the high- 
est achievements of the intellect of man. 

As we look about us, we see that living things are 
of myriad forms, each reproducing its own kind. We 
see that some forms are adapted to land, others to 
the sea. Some of these forms have few similarities, 
as the elephant and the insect; others have many 
similarities, as the cat and the lion. These similari- 
ties lead us to classify the plants and animals. Con- 
fining our attention to animals, we find that all spec- 
ies of man, apes and monkeys are classed together 
by all naturalists, and called primates; cats, leop- 
ards, tigers and lions form another group by reason 
of their manifest similarities; the dogs, the wolves, 
the foxes, and the hyenas are in another group ; 
bears and racoons are in another; seals and walruses 
are in another. The last five groups mentioned are 
put together in a class called camivora, because 
they are flesh eaters. Rats, rabbits, and squirrels, 
etc., gnaw their food and are classed as rodents. 



48 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

Horses, hogs, deer, elephants, camels, tapirs, rhi- 
noceroses, etc., are similar in having hoofs, and so 
are in the same class the ungulates. As all the fore- 
going have hair and suckle their young, they are all 
mammals. All those animals that fly in the air and 
have feathers are birds. Those that have backbones 
and live in the water (except the whale, porpoise, 
dolphin, which are mammals, and a few others) are 
fishes. Living in either water or air are the amphib- 
ia — the frogs, salamanders, etc. Dissimilar as are 
all these classes of animal forms — the primates, the 
carnivora, rodents, ungulates, birds, fishes, and am- 
phibia, they are all similar in having a backbone, 
and so they are all classed together as vertebrates. 
Developing from primitive worms that lived ages 
before the vertebrates were created are hundreds 
of thousands of species of animals with so many 
similarities that we cal them all insects. Also de- 
veloping from primitive worms are forms such as 
crabs, crawfish, and the crustaceans. Below these 
in descending scale are the worms, the polyps, the 
hydras, the sponges and lowest of all, the one-celled 
animals like the amoeba, which is but a mass of 
protoplasm enclosing a nucleus; it has no covering 
or skin, and is about one one-hundredth of an inch 
in diameter. 

The kinship of all the varieties of insects is set 
forth by Crampton as follows: (The Doctrine of Evo- 
lution) "Butterflies, beetles, bees, and grasshoppers 
seem at first sight to be entirely different, even 
though they agree in being more or less segmented. 
But all of them have heads with four pairs of ap- 
pendages of the same essential plan, a middle thor- 
acic region of three segments more or less united, 
bearing three pairs of legs, and usually two pairs of 
wings, while the hinder part is a freely joined abdo- 
men without real limbs. In these respects the count- 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 49 

less varieties of insects agree ; so that they also, like 
Crustacea of various kinds, seem to have been de- 
rived from wormlike animals with more simply seg- 
mented bodies. Indeed, spiders and scorpions and 
their relatives of the group arachnida prove for simi- 
lar reasons to be derivatives from the same original 
stock and own cousins of the insects." 

The kinship of all the varieties of backboned ani- 
mals is set forth by Prof. William Patten (Pop. Sci. 
Monthly, May, 1913,) as follows: ''The vertebrates 
form an essentially continuous, united group, for 
the differences between the most widely separated 
members, as for example, a fish and a human being, 
are differences in degree, not in kind ; differences in 
the details of the structure, and in the relative loca- 
tion and size of organs and parts of organs, or in 
the measure of their functions; none whatever in 
their serial location, in their fundamental structure, 
or in their mode of growth. Every important part, 
for example, of the digestive, excretory and repro- 
ductive system, and of the skull, nose, eye, ear, 
heart, and brain of a fish is easily recognized by the 
trained anatomist in the corresponding organs of 
man." 

Plants are not less alive than animals, though they 
are not apparently aware of their existence. They 
are sensitive in every cell just as an animal is, though 
not sensible of their own existence as the higher 
animals are during their waking hours. The con- 
dition of a higher animal asleep is similar to that of 
the plant — for he is then a living, sensitive individ- 
ual, without awareness of itself or its surroundings. 
Awareness seems to come into being as the work of 
the nervous system with its brain that thinks. Apart 
from brain action there is in living things only sensi- 
tiveness — a quality which the plant has. The plant 
is certainly sensitive to light, heat, gravity, moisture. 



50 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

The mimosa closes its leaves on being touched. Some 
plants droop and close as darkness approaches. Nor 
are plants less interesting than animals in the forms 
which they assume, for we can find relationship 
among those forms just as we traced it in the world 
in some paragraphs above. Here, too, we find that 
those which resemble each other most are nearst kin. 

Though the life-force in the plant and in the ani- 
mal is the same, the plant world differs from the 
animal in that the plant cell alone has the power to 
convert lifeless matter into living matter — to manu- 
facture protoplasm from the mineral world, from the 
water, salts, gases, etc., absorbed by its roots and 
leaves. The plant does this by its as yet unexplained 
power of making a green coloring matter, called 
chlorophyl, which can absorb certain rays of the sun 
and can break up the water absorbed by its roots 
and carbon dioxid taken into its leaves to be hydro- 
gen, oxygen and carbon, and then set free the oxy- 
gen, but retain the carbon and hydrogen, locked to- 
gether as hydro-carbon. Thus the plant drinks with 
its roots and eats with its leaves, and stores up energy 
for its own use and that of the animal, which does 
not have the power to do this, but must feed upon 
that made by the plant. 

We observe that all plants may be assigned to 
one of two classes — the seed plants, having flowers 
and the spore plants, having no flowers. The seed 
plants, with their wealth of beautiful leaves and 
flowers, make the familiar objects of woods and 
fields, but the spore plants, many of which are micro- 
scopic, are more numerous than they. These spore 
plants include the bacteria, the fungi, the algae, the 
yeasts, the lichens, and the ferns. The fungi — ^the 
mushrooms, molds, mildews, rusts — have an enor- 
mous number of species. They have no green color- 
ing matter and are dependent on other plants or up- 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 51 

on animals for their carbon. Their ancestry is un- 
known. Their bodies consist of threads which de- 
velop active ferments that enable them to penetrate 
wood or the hard surface of insects. The algae, of 
which there are sixteen thousand or more varieties, 
feome less than one-millionth of an inch in size, others 
being the giant seaweed of a hundred yards in 
length, the kelp, have the power to make chlorophyll 
and are probably the oldest of the plants. Probably 
descended from the green algae of fresh water are 
the ferns, which with giant horsetails and clubmosses 
well nigh covered the earth during the early time 
known as the Carboniferous Age, and produced most 
of the vegetable matter that formed the coal beds 
whose contents are now made to furnish us the heat 
and power derived from the sun and locked up very 
many millions of years ago. 

We observe further that all the seed plants may 
be assigned to one of two classes — those which are 
naked-seeded and those which are cover-seeded. 
The naked-seeded are more nearly related to the 
ferns than are the cover-seeded ones,and they are 
all descended from common ancestry. They include 
the pines, firs, larches, cedars, cypresses, cycadsand 
gingkos. The cover-seeded are also no doubt all 
descended from a common stock, though some are 
tiny water plants, others are ordinary weeds, and 
others are giant trees that live hundreds of years. 
What this common stock was is not determined. It 
may not be preserved as a fossil. There are two 
classes of the cover-seeded plants — ^those with single 
seed-leaf and those with double seed-leaf. The 
single seed-leaf plants have parallel veined leaves 
and they do not have rings to show annual growth. 
They include the large families known as the palm 
and the lily and the grass, the latter including maize, 
wheat, barley, oats, rice, and other foods of man. 



52 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

The double seed-leaf plants have the net veined 
leaves and they have the annual rings of growth. 
They include all the highest varieties, the birch and 
the alder, the poplar and the oak, the daisy family 
and the rose family. The last mentioned includes 
not only the queen of flowers but also the most valu- 
able variety of fruits. The strawberry and the apple, 
the blackberry and the raspberry, the hawthorn, the 
cherry and the pear are all members of the rose 
family. 

The double seed-leaf plants do not make their ap- 
pearance till just before the Cretaceous period of 
the Mesozoic Age. This completes a general survey 
of the plant world. We observe that all the seed 
plants have a similar way of perpetuating their 
species by organs known as flowers, some of which 
are highly colored while others are not. We find 
these plants that have high colored flowers depend 
on insects for their fertilization, while those without 
highly colored flowers depend on the wind or the 
water. In one common variety of aquatic plants the 
male flower, on maturing, rises to the surface of the 
water, where it floats and comes in contact with the 
female flower, which, on receiving the pollen, sinks 
to the bottom, where the seeds ripen. Flowers are 
now among the chief ornaments of the earth, but it 
seems that the earliest flowers were colorless, the 
color developing as a correlation to the insect world, 
whose eyes would be surer to find the plant with its 
flowers most highly colored. 

It will be of value to us to state the classification 
that includes all the plants and animals of the world, 
even though we repeat some things already said. 
There are four divisions of the plant world. 

First: The plants without reproductive organs. 
These multiply by division of one into two, or by 
''spores." They include bacteria, yeasts, molds, 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 



53 



vr«» 



COM0OSlTCt (0«.««,OA>iik) 



0*H». NtTTUt 



Pints, LuneMW 



PreftioopHYTcs FcRNs 



_ iLlvtRWOKtt 

OftYOPHVTES J I 

I Mossis 



Thaluopmytes 




ECHINODCRMATA 



k-ROTOPLASM . plus CMi.O«ft»KY»,» 



From Clodd's Primer of Evolution. 

J)1AGRAM OF DEVELOPMENTS 
The ascent of the higher life-forms from the lower is more later- 
al than the lines indicate, but the diagram is only a rough attempt 
to show the relative places of the leading groups. 

mushrooms, algae, fungi, lichens, and sea-weeds. 
There are 16,000 species of algae, 55,000 species of 
fungi, 5,600 species of lichens. Lichens are com- 
posedof algae and fungi living together. The num- 
ber of yeasts and bacteria is not estimated. The 
yeasts, bacteria, molds and blue-green algae are all 
over the earth. Bacteria are by the millions in every 
teaspoonful of warm, moist soil, and in all seas and 
oceans and rivers. Algae swarm all the waters. The 
green material on the north side of trees and fences 
and the green scum of ponds are algae. 

Second : Moss plants. These are green and have 
reproductive organs, and leafy stems and organs 
similar to roots, but no true roots and stems and 
veins. There are 16,500 species of mosses. These 
include the liverworts. 

Third : The fern plants. These have roots, stems, 
and leaves but no flowers and seeds. There are 



54 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

3,500 species. They range in size from a little epi- 
phyte, one-third of an inch high to gigantic tree 
ferns eighty feet or more high. 

Fourth: The seed plants. These have seeds and 
flowers, and they embrace most of the vegetation of 
the earth, its herbs, shrubs and trees. 

There are over one hundred thousand kinds of 
seed plants described by the botanists, who divide 
them into two groups — those whose seeds are naked, 
inmmensely abundant in earlier geologic ages, but 
now having four hundred species, the pines and their 
allies; and those whose seeds are covered in closed 
capsules and now predominating in the plant king- 
dom, the true flowering plants. 

There are ten divisions in the animal world. 

First: Protozoa. These are one-celled animals 
and are usually of microscopic size. They have no 
organs, and reproduce by self-division. They in- 
clude the amoeba, the Paramecium, globigerina, and 
many other forms. Many of these secrete shells of 
carbonate of lime. In many forms the surface is 
pierced by fine pores (foramina). 

Second : The Porif era. These are the sponges, 
which are composed of many cells and have a body 
in which there is a complex set of canals into which 
water enters. They abound in all sea formation from 
the Cambrian period to the present. There are a 
great many species. 

Third : The Coelenterata. These are composed of 
many cells and include the corals, jelly fishes, anem- 
ones, and medusae. 

Fourth: The Echinodermata. These have a tough 
skin and have parts radiating from a center, usually 
five in number, and have a mouth, alimentary canal 
and digestive system. The extinct fossil species of 
this branch outnumber many times the living species, 
of which the starfishes are best known. 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 55 

Fifth: The Worms. These include the flukes, 
tapeworms, pinworms, trichinae, earthworms and 
seaworms. They have no special sense, except that 
of touch, and they have no internal skeleton. 

Sixth: Molluscoidea. These have no heart or cir- 
culating system, and they multiply by budding. 
There are four thousand species of them, but ninety- 
five per cent, of them are extinct — are found only in 
the fossil state. The lingula is a specimen now living. 

Seventh: Mollusca. These include mussels, clams, 
oysters, snails, cuttlefishes, squids, and all one- 
valved shell fish. These have the special senses of 
touch, smell and taste, while some have eyes. 

Eighth: Arthropoda. These include crabs, craw- 
fish, shrimps, barnacles, lobsters, spiders, insects, 
and centipedes. Their bodies consist of rings cov- 
ered with a hardened cuticle, an exoskeleton. There 
are more species of arthropoda than of any other 
branch of the animal kingdom. All of the insects 
are six-legged arthropoda, and there are, according 
to estimates that seem to be conservative, 384,000 
living species of insects. There are fifty thousand 
different species of beetles. The insects include 
flies, ants, bugs, bees, butterflies, moths, fleas, lice, 
and grasshoppers. There are 7,500 known species 
of ants. 

Ninth: Protochordata. These are soft bodied 
marine animals. Some like the amphioxus, are fish- 
like; others like the balanaglossus, are wormlike. 
They possess a notochord and a central system and 
branchial slits. The notochord is a rod of cells grow- 
ing lengthwise of the body, which it stiffens and sup- 
.ports. It is the forerunner of the backbone. 

Tenth: Vertebrates. These include all animals 
with backbone. The lowest of these are the fishes, 
Then come the amphibia, adapted to life in both 
water and air, as salamanders, frogs and the coecilia. 



56 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 




In the upper left hand corner is the phenacodus. (1). It is the 
long extinct ancestor of ci), (8). (4). (5), and (6). This picture of the 
phenacodua Is taken by consent from Osborn's The Age of Mam- 
mals. Its bones are found in eocene strata and shows the animal 
to be little larger than a fox. The picture of the descendants are 
taken from The Living Animals of the World. (Dodd, Mead & Co.) 

Just above the amphibia, and evolved out of them, 
come the reptiles, which include the turtles, alliga- 
tors, lizards and snakes. There are 1,925 living 
species of lizards and nearly 1,800 living species of 
snakes. Just above the reptiles, and manifestly de- 
scended from them, come the birds. We have fossil 
remains of the archaeopteryx, a reptile-bird of the 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 57 

Jurassic period. There are ten thousand species of 
living birds. Above the birds are the mammals, the 
animals that suckle their young and have a covering 
of hair. There are six thousand species of mammals, 
twenty-five hundred living and thirty-five hundred 
extinct or fossil. The mammals are divided into 
twelve orders that include all species from the low- 
est, the egg-laying duckbill and echidna, to the high- 
est, the primates, that include monkeys, apes and 
man. 

This survey includes all plants and animals. It 
is interesting to note in passing that scientists regard 
the class to which the daisy belongs as the most high- 
ly organized of the plants, the ants as the most high- 
ly organized of the insects, the jay as the most high- 
ly organized of the birds, the cat as the highest of 
the carnivora, and man as the most highly organized 
of the mammals. These plants and animals occupy 
various areas. Some, like man, the cat family and 
various birds, have distributed themselves widely 
from the place of their origin to most parts of the 
earth, but others are still in the limited range where 
they developed. For instance, many species of ani- 
mals and plants in Australia — the kangaroos, wom- 
bats, duckbills, echidnas, etc., are found nowhere 
else on the globe. The birds native to Africa are all 
entirely different from those native to South Am- 
erica. The Azores and the Sandwich Islands were 
without frogs, snakes and mammals, except the bat, 
for the reason that only flying animals could cross 
the expanse of water surrounding them. For a like 
reason Ireland has no snakes, while England has the 
viper and a few other varieties. Ireland was separ- 
ated from England long ages before England was 
separated from the continent, and before snakes had 
migrated there. This fact, the earlier separation of 
Ireland from England by a wide expanse before Eng- 



58 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

land was so separated from the continent, explains 
the interesting circumstances that only twenty spe- 
cies of mammals are native to Ireland, while there 
are forty species native to England and ninety spe- 
cies to Germany. It seems now quite clear that 
plants and animals often migrated from the locali- 
ties in which they had developed. The forms would 
differ under the different conditions found in differ- 
ent areas — and migrations would be limited by such 
natural barriers as high mountains or wide waters. 

Australia was separated millions of years ago by 
thousands of miles of water from any of the conti- 
nents and it presents some features of special signifi- 
bance to the student of evolution. Of its 10,000 
Species of plants only a very few are found else- 
where and these few, like the fern, lily, tulip and 
honeysuckle, are very different in aspect from what 
they are elsewhere in the world. Their trees are 
those of a by gone age, the Jurassic, which elsewhere 
have disappeared forever to make way for the high- 
er forms, the elm, niaples, oaks, and other varieties 
familiar to us. Its eucalyptus trees, some of which 
hre 300 feet high, and the Kauri tree, which is 
twenty feet in diameter and has a straight columnar 
trunk 180 feet to the first branch, and also grows 
300 feet high; are distinct features of the plant .life. 
The animals are also distinct from the rest of the 
world. As the barrier of water between Australia 
and the other continents was there before cats, 
Swine; hbrses, Cattle; sheep, elephants, camels, rats, 
rabbits, bears, monkeys, etc., had originated, none 
of these animals are there; but as the barriers of 
water did not cut Australia off until after the begin- 
ning of the Age of Mammals it holds and preserves 
the primitive types, the Monotremes, of which the 
platypus and echidna of Australia are the only speci- 
mens now living. The platypus is web-footed, has a 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 59 

bill like a duck and has hair. It lays eggs and 
suckles its young. The great animal groups — the 
lizards, tortoises, birds, snakes, fishes, crabs, etc., 
which were in existence before the land bridge to 
other continents was destroyed — are also in Aus- 
tralia. It has a hundred species of snakes, three 
hundred and nienteen species of lizards, and seven 
hundred seventy-five species of birds, among these 
the lyre birds and the emu and cassowary. 

It is true that two higher mammals, a species of 
man, the blackfellow, and a wild dog, the dingo, 
are in Australia, but these must have traversed the 
water barriers, probably at the same time, and that 
within two or three hundred thousand years past. 
The blackfellow is the lowest type of man living. He 
has a cranial capacity of 75 as compared with 83 
for the African negro. He wears scant clothing and 
this is usually of bark of trees or skins of kangaroo. 
He makes no house and no pottery and knows no 
agriculture. In fact he is in the paleolithic stage 
and enables us to see how our own ancestors lived 
a hudred thousand years ago. Anthropologists say 
that he is related to the yeddahs of Ceylon and the 
Dravidian races of southern India. Though, as his 
name, Blackfellow, indicates, his skin is dark, his 
hair is wavy or curly, not wooly or frizzy and he is 
from the same ancestors as the Caucasian race, but 
seems to be incapable of progress to higher culture. 
In Tasmania, southeast of Australia, there lived yet 
another race of people who became extinct in 1865. 
These had wooly hair. 

It is also interesting to note that all individuals of 
all the various forms of life have a specific length of 
life which they may attain under favorable con- 
ditions, and then they die. Each is so constituted 
that it ceases to live after a certain length of time, 
as a clock ceases to run after so many days from the 



60 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

time it is wound up. In the single celled varieties, 
as the amoeba, a few hours or a few days is the nor- 
mal limit of the life of an individual, which ceases 
to exist either by division into two daughter cells or 
by dissolution after death. In the insect world the 
duration of life from the hatching of an egg to the 
death of the adult varies from four or five weeks, as 
in plant lice, to seventeen years as in the cicada, 
falsely called the locust of America, which lives 
seventeen years as a *'grub" worm, and only one 
month as a winged, singing ''locust." The mayfly, 
or any of the ephemerida, lives only a day after it 
emerges with wings in its adult stage. Most butter- 
flies live less than one year from the hatching of the 
egg into a caterpillar. The worker bee lives four 
months; the queen bee lives two or three years. 
Some worms live only a week. The length of life of 
most fishes is not yet made out, but there is reason 
to believe that many of them live for centuries. 
Fishes and reptiles continue to grow as long as they 
live, their duration being as a rule longer than birds 
and mammals. Salmon live to the age of a hundred 
years, carp to a hundred and fifty, and pike to two 
hundred years. Eels have been kept in aquaria 
sixty years. Toads live thirty years. Small land 
tortoises have been kept in captivity over a century. 
Certain of the immense tortoises of the Gallapagos 
Islands are known to be more than two centuries old. 
Small birds live from eight to twenty-five years; 
gulls forty years; ducks, geese, peafowls and ost- 
riches fifty years; ravens and crows and owls sixty 
years; swans seventy years; parrots eighty years; 
eagles and falcons more than a hundred years. 

Among mammals rats and mice live to five or six 
years; rabbits and squirrels ten or twelve years; 
bats seventeen years; Sheep and goats twelve or 
fourteen years; dogs, cats and hogs from twelve to 



1 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 61 

twenty years; lions, tigers, and bears twenty-five 
years; horses, asses and zebras from fifteen to thirty 
years; cows twenty-five years; elephants forty years; 
whales probably live more than a hundred years, 
and may be the longest lived as well as the largest 
animal. Man lives a hundred years in rare instances ; 
all cases reputed to be much more than this are be- 
lieved to be errors of reckoning. 

The duration of life among plants is equally var- 
ied. Some of the fungi live but a few days; many 
plants live one year; others, as many herbs, live two 
years ; shrubs live from four to ten years ; trees with 
soft wood, as poplars and willows, live for fifty years. 
The age of large tree may be definitely known by 
counting their annual rings of growth. In this we 
find that they live to various ages, from the elm, 
which lives three hundred years, to the giant trees 
of California, the largest thing that has life, more 
than a hundred feet in circumference and more than 
three thousand years. A baobab tree in Cape Verde 
Island is estimated to be five thousand years old. 

The statement that all living things must die is 
certainly true of all multicellular forms, but it is 
not necessarily true of one cell forms, as bacteria, 
protozoa, etc. Weismann's doctrine that the one 
cell form, in which a parent cell divides to become 
two daughter cells, may live on indefinitely is now 
generally accepted. Though these protozoa die in 
countless millions some of them live on through 
countless generations. The germ cells in the sex or- 
gans make an instance of cells now living which 
have come into being by division of parent cells that 
go back and back for progenitors till the time when 
life was formed on the earth, probably more than a 
hundred million years ago. Says Thompson in his 
"Wonder of Life" : 

''We can not speak of death when one creature 



62 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

directly turns into two or many, and when there is 
nothing left to bury. It is not improbable that some 
very simple multicellular animals, such as the fresh 
water Hydra, may also go on living indefinitely if 
the natural conditions are altogether propitious. 
The structure and the multiplication of the Hydra 
are alike so simple that there seems no good reason 
why it should die a natural death. Most animals die 
before their time, devoured by their fellows, killed 
by some environmental vicissitude, or starved by a 
seasonal disappearance of their food. In a state of 
nature most animals die a violent death before they 
have nearly reached the end of their tether." 

The fact that forms of life came into being by a 
process of evolution seems to be made manifest when 
we have made a survey of all living forms of both 
animals and plants, and find that they may be ar- 
ranged in the order of complexity — from simple to 
ever more complex, sometimes by small gradations. 
When we further find, as we do, that the simplest 
forms are always found in the oldest geologic strata, 
that the most complex forms are found only in the 
most recent strata, and that there is a gradation of 
complexity in fossil forms from the oldest to the most 
recently laid strata, each stratum having types only 
a little less complex than those just above it and very 
similar to them, the evidence of the creation of ani- 
mals and plants by a process of evolution seems 
complete. 

It is not true, however, that every form of life has 
changed to other and higher forms as the ages ad- 
vanced, for some have remained the same, and there 
are many instances of retrogression of type. Cer- 
tain protozoa with perforated shells (foraminifera) 
are exactly the same now as they were in strata laid 
perhaps a hundred million years ago during the Silu- 
rian epoch. In the sands of seashores in most parts 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 63 

of the world living at the line of low tide are the 
lingulae, little animals in a shell about an inch long 
from one end of which is a gristly stalk. Fossils of 
this same form are found in the Paleozoic Age. The 
barnacle is an instance of change to a lower form, 
for its ancestor was a free swimming animal with 
eyes and other sense organs, while it is now fixed 
and torpid, and blind in its adult stage. 

''Science has taught us something of the wonder- 
ful stability of nature, something of the immensity 
of past time and future ages, something of the eter- 
nity of natural processes. Comipared with this infin- 
ite stability and eternity of nature, what are our 
little systems and customs? Our years and centuries 
fall into this abyss of time like grains of sand. Our 
individual lives are like drops of water in the great 
ocean of life. What intellectual development, what 
social institutions, what control of natural processes 
may come in the long ages of futurity, it has not 
entered into the heart of man to conceive. And yet, 
so far as we may judge from the small portion of the 
recbrd of the past which we can read, there has been 
no necessary progress. There has been eternal pro- 
cess moving on, but not eternal progress. Stagna- 
tion, degeneration, elimination, as well as progres- 
sion, have occurred all along the path of evolution. 
And yet on the whole evolution has been progressive, 
and there is no reason to suppose that the elimina- 
tion of the unfit and the preservation of the fit will 
cease to be the law of future evolution, as it has been 
of the past." (Edwin Grant Conklin, op. cita.) 

The creation of birds from the four-legged five- 
toed cold-blooded reptiles of the Mesozoic Age, the 
scales becoming feathers and the fore legs develop- 
ing into wings, is one of the greatest achievements 
of evolution, yet it is a fact to which all biologists 
agree. This achievement, equal in its wonderful 



64 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

changes to that by which some invertebrates devel- 
oped into fishes, or to that by which some cold- 
blooded reptiles developed into mammals, has event- 
uated in giving to us the ten thousand species of 
living birds and the vast number of those extinct. 
Just how it was achieved we do not know, but we 
have in the archaeopteryx an animal just midway 
between bird and reptile. We have also in the fos- 
sil tetrapteryx a missing link between bird and rep- 
tile. Its scales turned after ages into feathers. Says 
Dr. W. H. Ballou: 

V'The hind limbs of birds are so similar in struc- 
ture to those of certain dinosaurs that the inference 
must be made that birds came up from two-legged, 
long-tailed running reptiles which, during their 
progress, coasted along in the air by flapping their 
free front limbs. These free front limbs or arms 
would, of course, be more effective if their breadth 
could in some way increase to give a greater bearing 
surface — in just the same way that, all things being 
equal, an aeroplane can go through the air better 
with bigger planes than smaller ones. An increase 
in the size of the scales along the arm margin would 
be a ready means to this end. The fossils show such 
an increase actually took place. 

"Similar scales might develop along the margins 
of the tail — and did. These scales would in time 
extend, lighten and ultimately evolve into feathers 
which would not only increase the function of flight 
but, acting as clothing, retain and aid in the increase 
of temperature." 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 65 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Factors of Evolution 

The most wonderful thing about life is its power 
to create an infinite variety of new forms. Geology 
enables us to know that for long ages after the earth 
had its oceans there were layers of sediment which 
hold no fossils or relics of living forms, and that 
above these lifeless layers are strata that hold living 
forms, the simplest forms being in the lowest strata. 
This does not mean that life brought into the world 
at that time new matter or new laws, but there was 
a new derivative from the old, a recombination of 
forces preexisting in the energy which composed the 
matter of the earth. Matter is now known to be but 
reservoirs of units of energy. However, we do not 
know the nature of this energy, or the actions, re- 
actions, and interrelations of its units. These seem 
to be utterly hidden from us, utterly beyond the 
reach of our observation. 

We do know ,however, that there has been an evo- 
lution of living forms from simple to complex until 
now we have almost an infinite variety. We know 
that three sets of energies include all the forces 
which cause this evolution, to wit: those that make 
up the body of the plant or animal, those that make 
its environment, and those that make up the heredi- 
ty substance, the chromatin of the egg, which com- 
pels the egg to become an adult. The actions, re- 
actions and interrelations of these three sets of ener- 
gies lead to the forming of new varieties or species. 
If we could but know the nature of this universal 
energy which is embodied in forms of matter we 
might predict the future forms of life or claim to 



66 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

know the true cause of the evolution of the present 
from the past, but alas! we can only know what can 
be reached by our senses and these are too limited 
in their powers to bring us evidence as to the nature 
of the Creative Energy, which moves in the electrons 
that compose the atoms that compose the cell. 

Though this be true, great discoveries have been 
made of nature's method in creating new forms of 
life and it is the purpose of this chapter to state 
them. 

There are various forms of life to be seen on the 
earth, as has been said, but all the forms are com- 
posed of cells and all cells are made up of the same 
chemical elements. On this account all life is the 
same in essence, and whether it be of flower or bird 
it has basic qualities that are the same, as, for in- 
stance, irritability, nutrition, reproduction, growth. 
We should say then that the life which animates the 
forms of all the many thousands of species of both 
plants and animals is the same. There are three 
thousand species of mammals and ten thousand 
species of birds now living. Of insects there are 
three hundred thousand species now living, some of 
which, as ants and bees and spiders, have powers of 
mind that make them among the wonders of the 
world. The rocks of the earth's crust hold as fossils, 
which we can now examine, the remains of many 
thousands of forms of life long extinct. Many of 
these fossil forms are similar to those now living, and 
all of them belong to one of the families into which 
all living things are classed by reason of resem- 
blances in structure. 

All forms of life have shapes and parts and 
powers that adapt them to their particular place and 
to all things about them. Many of them are made 
to fit the needs and the nature of other forms of life 
as a hand fits a glove. The mouth part of bees and 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 67 

butterflies and other insects are formed to fit the 
shape and size of the flowers, and vice versa. Dar- 
win, while aboard a ship near the coast of Madagas- 
car, drew a life size picture of a flower never seen 
by him but afterward found on the land near. He 
had measured the length of body, legs, and pro- 
boscis of a moth caught on the ship and from this 
data he drew a design of the flower just suited by 
its shape and size to give nectar to it. Highly colored 
flowers usually depend entirely on insects to be pol- 
linated, the color of the flower being adapted to at- 
tract the insects. The humming birds are clearly 
adapted to visit flowers. Their favorites are scarlet 
flowers with a long tube in which they find nectar, 
like the canna and trumpet vine. The flowers that 
are without colors, as the flowers of oaks, pines, etc., 
are usually pollinated by the wind; but there are so 
many trees and other plants that do depend on in- 
sects whose shapes are correlated to their flowers 
that there seems to be no doubt that insects and 
flowering plants, the angiosperms, have made the 
shapes of each other. The shapes of insects and 
flowering plants are but adaptations to a certain 
mode of life. It may also be shown that the instincts 
and the other powers of the insect that are higher 
than those possessed by the plant are but adapta- 
tions to its mode of life. Not only is this true of the 
bee and other insects which visit flowers, but the 
shapes and sizes and all other qualities, including all 
the powers of the mind, of fish and bird and beast 
are adaptations to their mode of life, and have been 
perfected to their present state through changes for 
millions of years. The form and qualities of every 
variety of life seem to have been created by its needs 
as a fitting to the environment. 

Those plants and animals whose form and powers 
failed to meet their needs perished from the earth. 



68 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 



As a matter of fact we know that a great many forms 
have ceased to exist, have become extinct, and that 
others are nearing extinction. For instance, the 
great auk, the dodo, and the moa, all of them im- 
mense birds recently living, are now gone. They are 
utterly extinct, and so recently has this occurred 
that their egg shells (now valued at thousands of 
dollars each) are to be found in many of the mu- 





Dodo [Didiis iiieptus) 
From a painting m the Belvedere. Vienna. 




Skeleton of Dinornts. 
Museuiff of Natural History. New York. 




FOUR ANIMALS RECENTLY KX'J INCT 
The Quagga 1870, the Great Auk 1844, the Dodo 1681, the Moa in 1500. 
These pictures, being taken from different books, do not give a cor- 
rect view of the relative sizes of the animals. 

seums of the world. The great auk species vanished 
in 1844. It lived both in Europe and America, in- 
habiting Labrador in large numbers. It was about 
two and a half feet long, but as its wings were only 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 69 

six inches long it could not fly away from destruction 
at the hands of man. The dodo became extinct about 
two hundred years ago, vanishing in 1681. It lived 
on Mauritius Island, east of Madagascar. It was as 
large as a swan, but as its wings were too small for 
flight, it also soon succumbed after the island was 
occupied by man. We have some pictures made of 
it from life, and large numbers of its skeletons have 
been preserved. The moa lived in New Zealand, 
and became extinct about the year 1500. It was a 
huge, flightless bird, whose size was far greater than 
that of the ostrich. The bones of some of them are 
preserved, and show them to have been fourteen feet 
high with thigh bones stouter than those of the 
horse. The quagga, an animal intermediate between 
the horse and the zebra, until recently wandered in 
large herds over the plains of South Africa, as did 
our almost extinct buffalo over the plains of North 
America; but as the flesh and hide of the quagga 
were of great value to man he (the Boers) killed it 
with ruthless waste. The last one died in 1870. The 
hairy mammoth, the ancestor of the elephant, be- 
came extinct so recently that several specimens have 
been found in the ice fields of Siberia with the flesh 
preserved. These are a few specimens of animals 
recently extinct. The rocks bear fossils of hundreds 
of thousands of forms of animals that disappeared 
from the earth millions of years ago because their 
forms and powers of body and mind failed to fit 
them to their surroundings in a way that could pro- 
vide for them food and the rearing of offspring. 

Several races of men have become extinct within 
historic times. When the island of Tasmania was 
discovered by the white man, it was occupied by a 
race somewhat similar to the aborigines of Australia 
not far away. The English settlement there in 1804 
brought such unfavorable conditions to their en- 



70 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

vironment that the natives, unfitted for the struggle 
for existence when in competition with the Englsh, 
and unable to withstand diseases like measles, to 
which the white man had become inured, rapidly 
diminished in numbers, and in 1865 the last one died. 
There are photographs extant of this last Tasman- 
ian, an old woman named Tiganina, with whose sad 
life ended that of a race. The Lenguas, a tribe of 




Photograph of a three-toed prehistoric horse, the Hypohippus. 

From Encyclopedia Britannlca, 11th Edition- 

South American Indians, that lived west of Para- 
guay river, formerly very numerous and formidable, 
became extinct in 1828 when the miserable remnant 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 71 

of less than three hundred of theni merged in other 
tribes. They had been nearly exterminated by the 
white settlers. 

The fossils of the Paleozoic Age show that the 
entire surface of the land was then covered with the 
same kind of plants, a fact probably due to the 
earth's being enveloped by dense clouds which acted 
as a blanket to keep it warm from pole to pole for a 
long period of time. These plants were mainly ferns, 
club mosses, and horsetails. It was the rank growth 
of these that made the coal beds of the world. When 
climatic zones appeared as the blanket of clouds dis- 
appeared, new forms of plants came into being. The 
higher plants did not come into existence till the 
latter part of the Mesozoic Age. Though once the 
plants in both hemispheres were the same, a good 
many plants are now found in the northern hemi- 
sphere that are not found in the southern, and vice 
versa. Pines, firs, willows, oaks, birches and maples 
are not found in the southern hemisphere. When 
the floras of the Indo-Malay peninsula are compared 
with the tropical part of South America only a few 
varieties will be found native to both countries. 
Even when the native varieties or species of widely 
separated parts of the earth are found to be the 
same, they will have differences that easily distin- 
guish them, from each other. The varieties of the 
oaks, elms, walnuts, larches, asters, golden rods, 
gentians, and violets native to Europe are easily dis- 
tinguished from those found in North America. 

Campbell in his Evolution of Plants, tells us that 
"Europe has no magnolias, tulip trees, gums, sassa- 
fras, hickories, trilliums, milkweeds, mandrakes, 
persimmons, locusts, and many more familiar Am- 
erican plants; (some of these are found in Europe 
as fossils showing that they once existed there) 
while on the other hand America possesses no daffo- 



72 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 



dils, tulips, snowdrops, fox gloves, heaths, brooms, 
and many other beautiful flowers which adorn the 
woods and meadows of the Old World. The daisies, 
dandelions and buttercups of our Eastern states are 




m as 






r= an O 



S S 0) 
I 3^ Jf 









c s 



OS 



European immigrants, and the thistles and burdocks 
are aliens. The plants native to the tropics are 
usually members of families that have no represent- 
atives in the temperate zones." When we recall the 
fact that the fossils show that the same plants once 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 73 

grew all over the earth, from pole to pole, whers 
there were the same climatic conditions, and reflect 
that now each different climatic condition has its 
own variety of plants, we must see the reasonable- 
ness of the conclusion that the shapes and other 
qualities of the plants, and also of the animals, are 
owing to changes that fitted them to their modes of 
life under changed conditions of climate and the 
other features of the environment about them. A 
failure in fitness to climate or other condition would 
cause the extinction of the plant or animal. The 
sassafras, magnolia, and tulip trees which are now 
found only in southeastern United States and south- 
eastern Asia, are found as fossils in Pliocene strata 
of Portugal, France, Italy, and the Altai Mountains. 
Until 1859, when Darwin published his discovery 
that new species of plants and animals are created 
by the natural selection of those forms best adapted 
to the conditions in a given area, it was generally be- 
lieved that each form of life was a special creation 
miraculously made by the Creator, and that of these 
specially created forms the forms now existing are 
the exact replicas and in lineal descent from them. 
In the half century since Darwin published the evi- 
dence of evolution in his work, 'The Origin of Spe- 
cies by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preserva- 
tion of the Favored Races in the Struggle for Life,'' 
all biologists without exception have come to accept 
his conclusion. Many great men are devoting their 
lives to the study of the ways of nature and much 
light has been thrown on the problems of biology 
since Darwin's discovery. Much that Darwin be- 
lieved to be true has been modified; but his con- 
tention that the origin of species is due to variations 
that are naturally selected, that survive because they 
are better fitted to the environment, is no ^longer dis- 
puted by any biologist. The cause of the variations 



74 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

that first appear is still not understood, and there is 
much contention as to nature's method in throwing 
the new varieties that appear within a species, but 
there is now no dispute as to the fact that the least 
adapted forms become extinct by a purely natural 
process. This leads to differences so great in those 
surviving that the plant or animal comes to be of a 
different species from the form that first produced 
the variations. This is now taken as a fact proved 
beyond dispute. 

''Evolution," says H. F. Osborn, "is a law of living 
nature as firmly and incontrovertibly established as 
the law of gravitation in respect to the celestial 
spheres." S. W. Williston says 'That all living things 
have arisen on this earth by a process of evolution 
is a demonstrated fact. But the causes of organic 
evolution are still an unsolved problem; and he will 
be a greater man than Darwin who finally demon- 
strates them." 

There are. five well known facts which work to- 
gether as factors in the process of making new spe- 
cies. These are as follows : 

1. No two children of the same parents are ever 
exactly alike. Whether the parents be plants or 
animals, their offspring will differ in some respects 
from the parents and from each other in form, color, 
tendency, texture, temperament, or other of the 
many characteristics that make up an individual. 
From this it would result that some individuals 
would be better adapted to secul-e food, escape 
enemies, and care for offspring than others. For in- 
stance, those individual plants born with a smaller, 
smoother leaf and longer root would be better 
adapted to secure and hold moisture, and be more 
likely to live through a drought or in a desert than 
their brothers not so gifted. 

2. Most of the offspring of a plant or animal are 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 75 

endowed with features like their parents in most 
particulars. This inheritance by a child of the fea- 
tures of the parent is now believed to be mechanized 
by a group of bodies, chemical compounds, of infini- 
tesimally small size in the nucleus of the egg or seed. 
For each unit character in the adult plant or animal 
there is a specific body called a determiner in the 
nucleus of the egg or seed that compels the growth 
along lines that will bring the characteristic into be- 
ing. These specific bodies are in the egg or seed 
which are developed within the parent, but because 
they can never be mingled in exactly the same way 
when the sperm of the male unites with the ovum 
of the female each egg or seed is a little different 
from other eggs or seeds made by the same parents. 
This fact leads to the appearance of differences in 
the children. How a new specific body, made of one 
or more molecules, comes into being in the egg or 
seed that will cause an entirely new feature to ap- 
pear in the adult, or how a specific body in the egg 
of the parent may fail to be made in the egg or seed 
of the child, and so a quality once found in the adults 
of a strain entirely drop out, is as yet unknown. 
The fact remains, however, beyond dispute that the 
mechanism in the nucleus of the egg or seed secures 
the reappearance in the offspring of plants or ani- 
mals of most but not quite all of the features of the 
parents; and it is this mechanism that brings into 
being in the child a feature not in the parent. How 
the determiners in the egg nucleus are made and 
mingled is still unknown, as stated above. 

3. There are usually born more plants or animals 
of the species living in a given area than can obtain 
food or place there. If all the plants and animals 
born matured into adults the earth's surface would 
be entirely covered within a few months. One oyster 
lays millions of eggs, each of which may produce an 



76 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

oyster that will also lay millions of eggs. A female 
salmon lays ' about nine hundred eggs for every 
pound of her weight, and she may weigh fifty 
pounds. A plant bearing ten seeds a year would 
have a billion descendants in ten years. The slowest 
breeder on the earth is the elephant, which gives 
birth to one young every ten years, but if it lives to 
a hundred years as some claim it does, one pair will 
become ten elephants in a century, and if none die 
before the time of natural death for them, at the 
end of eight centuries the pair would have nineteen 
million descendants living. Thus more individuals 
of each species are born than can survive. 

4. As there are food and place for only a com- 
paratively few of each species born in an area there 
must be a struggle for life going on at that place to 
determine which individuals shall live. There is a 
struggle for life by each individual against others 
of the same species, and also against the hard con- 
ditions of the environment. 

5. Those best adapted to obtain food, escape or 
destroy enemies, find mates, and other necessities 
for the continuance of life, will be the ones that will 
survive. Those with the greatest natural powers, 
as sight, hearing, swiftness of locomotion, reasoning 
power, will survive in larger numbers and bear chil- 
dren. If this more favorable variation be due to 
energies in the egg from which the individual devel- 
oped it will also appear in his children. This will 
lead to the pers stence of the best endowed of a 
species, and the disappearance of the less endowed 
in competition with his variety. The addition of 
small variations in one direction for many gener- 
ations becomes difference so great that the individual 
must after a time be classed as a different species 
from his ancestor in which the variations first ap- 
peared. Large variations sometimes appear sudden- 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 77 

ly, as "leaps" or ''sports." If favorable they will 
persist as varieties. 

These five facts acting together are held to be 
sufficient to create new species. Granting the fact 
of variations — and this we must do, however we may 
differ as to their cause — granting the arrival of vari- 
ations, we can now plainly see that their preserva- 
tion is sufficient to produce in time entirely different 
species, and we can now see that this is accom- 
plished by a natural selection of those forms adapted 
to make the most and the best out of the environ- 
ment. We see that progress toward better forms 
must result from the survival of the fittest in each 
generation. 

We should clearly note that the survival of the 
fittest, or natural selection, does not account for the 
arrival of a new quality or power in a plant or ani- 
mal. There must be a change in the seed or egg be- 
fore a new power or quality arrives that will persist 
in descendants. Says Conklin (op. cita) : ''The 
elimination of certain races by natural selection may 
be an important factor in evolution, though it has 
nothing to do with the formation of new characters 
or new races but serves merely as a sieve, as DeVries 
has expressed it, to sort the individuals which are 
supplied to it. Selection has no power to make or 
change characters, but it may preserve certain lines 
and eliminate others, and thus fix the type of a 
species. Finally the elimination of the unfit by 
natural selection is still the only natural explanation 
of fitness, or adaptations, in organisms." No one 
has yet offered the solution of the problem as to how 
or why the egg or seed changes to furnish the new 
variations which are rejected or selected by nature. 
It has been suggested that the infinitesimal chemical 
bodies which make the determiners in the egg can 
never be exactly like that in the parent's egg from 



78 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

which it is derived owing to the fact that conditions 
can never be exactly the same and therefore differ- 
ent chemical unions take place. 

One thing is now clear, that the new variation can 
not arrive in the form of the plant or animal except 
as a development from a new ''inheritance unit" or 
an alteration of an inheritance unit formed in the 
seed or egg and existing in those seeds and eggs that 
are in lineal descent from it. There is no form of the 
body or power of the mind that does not come into 
being as the result of determiners in the seed or egg- 
cell. Says Conklin: "The entire organism, consist- 
ing of structures and functions, body and mind, de- 
velops out of the germ, and the organization of the 
germ determines all the possibilities of development 
of the mind no less than the body." 

**0f course the characters of the adult individuals 
do not exist as such in the germ cells, but there is no 
escape from the conclusion that in case of inherent 
differences between mature organisms there must 
have been differences in the constitution of the germ- 
cells from which they developed. For every inher- 
ited character there was a germinal cause in the fer- 
tilized egg. This germinal cause, whatever it may 
be, is spoken of as a determiner of a character. Each 
character is caused by some particular combination 
of inheritance units." These exist in the nucleus of 
the egg or seed. 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 79 
CHAPTER V. 

The Laws of Inheritance 

The five facts — ^the appearance of variations from 
the parents in some particulars, the resemblance to 
the parents in most particulars, the birth of more 
plants and animals than can live, the struggle for 
lood and other necessities of life resulting in the 
survival of the fittest — make the chain of causes 
pointed out by Darwin for the progress of all living 
things to forms and powers that give them ever bet- 
ter adaptation to their environment. Since Darwin's 
discovery of the last link in the chain, survival of the 
fittest or natural selection, as the means by which 
each step of this progress is taken, many important 
discoveries have been made which modify and sim- 
plify the view presented by him, the most important 
being those made by Weissman, by DeVries and by 
Mendel. Weissman proved that the germ-plasm is 
continuous and that characteristics acquired by the 
individual are not inherited. DeVries proved that 
hereditary variations came as the effect of a change 
in the egg and were usually by leaps or sports in- 
stead of by infinitesimally small changes as Darwin 
thought. Mendel discovered the law of inheritance 
of dominant and recessive characters. 

Weissman discovered that the germ plasm is con- 
tinuous from generation to generation, and he 
proved that instead of the hen making the egg the 
egg makes the hen and the eggs laid by her by a 
process of cell division that sets the germ-cells apart 
and causes the body to be a mere support and ve- 
hicle for the germ cells. Until this proof was pub- 
lished it was believed that whatever new traits an 



80 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

individual acquired after his birth would be found 
in his posterity. It was believed, for instance, that 
if a man had long training in music his children 
would have inore ability to succeed in music than if 
he, the parent, had not acquired expertness in music. 
But after Weismann proved that the body cells, 
nerves, muscles, etc., had no relation to the germ 
cell, which is set apart soon after the fertilized cell 
begins to multiply by division of one cell into two, 
and that the germ cell is the determiner of the quali- 
ties of posterity, the difficulty, if not the impossi- 
bility, of the body cells affecting the germ cells be- 
came apparent. The reader will find in the following 
extract from Conklin's Heredity and Environment 
a brief but clear statement of the views now held as 
to the mechanism of inheritance of ancestral traits: 
"There is a continuity of germinal cells (the egg 
or seed is made by a union of these cells found in the 
sex organs) from one generation to the next. In some 
animals the germ cells are set apart at a very early 
stage of development, sometimes in the early cleav- 
age stages of the egg. In practically every case the 
geims cells arise from the germinal or embryonic 
(body) tissues. The germ in the undeveloped organ- 
ism forms the bond between successive generations; 
the person is the developed organism which arises 
from the germ under the influence of environmental 
conditions. The person develops and dies in each 
generation ; the germ-plasm is the continuous stream 
of living substance which connects all generations. 
The person nourishes and protects the germ, and in 
this sense the person is merely the carrier of the 
germ-plasm, the mortal trustee of an immortal sub- 
stance." (Because this germ-plasm lives its life 
without connection with the body that enfolds it, 
and nourishes it, the qualities acquired by the ex- 
periences of the body are not inheritable) . ''Heredi- 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 81 

ty may be defined as the appearance in offspring of 
characters whose differential causes are found in 
the germ cells. Heritage is the sum of all those 
qualities which are determined or caused by this 
germinal organization." 

"All students of heredity assume the existence of 
inheritance units in the germ cells, called determin- 
ers. They are thought of as elements or units of the 
germ cells which condition the characters of the de- 
veloped organism, and which are in a measure inde- 
pendent of one another. The germ cells are exceed- 
ingly complex. They contain many visible units 
(microscopic) such as chromosomes, and with every 
great improvement in the microscope other struc- 
tures are made visible which were invisible before." 

All the qualities of the chicken, duck, fish, frog 
or man are developed by reason of the existence of 
certain minute bodies in the nucleus of the fertilized 
egg. A tiny germ cell may contain in its nucleus 
enough inheritance units as material particulars to 
provide for the almost infinite variety of qualities 
found in the animal and plant world. The particles 
that are inheritance units are made of molecules, 
the largest of which are probably ten millionths of 
a millimeter in diameter. It would require twenty- 
five of these laid side by side to equal the diameter 
of the smallest particle seeable by our highest power 
microscopes. Not only so, but a molecule of albu- 
men which has forty carbon atoms may be so ar- 
ranged as to become a billion stereoisomers, that is, 
particles that have all the same atoms, but each with 
different qualities, due to a different arrangement 
of the same atoms in a molecule. When we note 
that there are many kinds of albumen and other pro- 
teins in the egg or cell, some with more than seven 
hundred carbon atoms, we must admit that even 
the tiniest germ cell known to us could contain 



82 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

enough inheritance units in its nucleus to cause the 
development of the most complex individual. It is 
because every fertilized egg cell differs in some re- 
spects from every other one that no two adult indi- 
viduals are ever exactly alike, not even though they 
be full brothers; and it is because the inheritance 
units in every fertilized egg cell are arranged 
similarly to the egg cell from which it came by a 
mere division that the egg cell of a chicken will 
produce a chicken, of a duck a duck. In this way we 
get both variations from parents and resemblances 
to them as the heritage of every individual. 

The discovery that has proved of the most practi- 
cal value to both the student and the breeder of 
plants and animals was made by an Austrian monk, 
Gregor Mendel, who discovered in 1866 the fact that 
if a cross be made of two individual plants which 
had some qualities as to color, size, etc., that were 
in striking contrast, the progeny would not be a 
blend, a mid-way between the parents, but would 
be always exactly like one of the parents as to that 
characteristic. He found that the first generation of 
descendants would all be like one of the parents, 
that is they would all take from the same one of the 
parents, and that if the children of this first gener- 
ation were inbred they would produce children 
three-fourths of whom would be facsimiles of one 
grandparent as to a certain characteristic, and that 
the other one-fourth would have the characteristic 
of the other grandparent, the latter characteristic 
being that which failed to appear in the first gener- 
ation. See illustration of grandchildren of a white 
and a black guinea pig. In this way one character- 
istic would be properly called ''dominant" and the 
other ''recessive." For instance, if sweet peas of 
two varieties are crossed, one having red petals and 
the other white petals, the first generation of off- 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 83 




PAREMTS 



4^^ 





From Covkliv's Hnrdity and Enviromnent. 



spring will all be red petaled, red thus showing it- 
self a dominant ''unit-character." If this first gen- 
eration be interbred there results an offspring 75 
per cent, of which will be red petaled and 25 per 
cent, white petaled. The white petal offspring, the 
''recessive," when interbred with white petaled 
sisters will produce only white petaled sweet peas, 
but when the red petaled are interbred in a like way 
25 per cent, of them will produce only red petaled 
sweet peas, but the remaining 50 per cent, being 
interbred will produce hybrids of red and white 
petals, but in the proportion of three red to one 
white. Thus the red, the "dominant," will have only 
one out of three pure — that is, incapable of produc- 
ing anything but red petaled offspring — but the 
white, the "recessive," are always pure — that is, 
incapable on interbreeding with white of producing 
anything but white petaled offspring. 



84 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 



Similarly when grey and white mice are mated, 
grey proves to be the ''dominant" and white the 
''recessive" in exactly the same proportion of three 
to one. If a black guinea pig be crossed with a 
brown one, the black and the brown are found to be 
Mendelian characteristics, the black "dominant." 
When an ordinary mouse is mated with the waltz- 
ing mouse of Japan, the descendants of the first 
generation are all ordinary mice; but when these; 
latter are interbred their offspring are found to 
have one out of four waltzing mice, exact replicas 









'-•ffBTJ^BIHmjr^^^i (|i1^^^Ki!BW^p|[|ifc^'~ 




^^* 



:>* 



From ,JoicetV>< Tlir .Ve.rf Geiunifioii. 

of the Japan mouse as to its habit of waltzing. Thus 
the waltzing habit is a Mendelian character. 

Mendel used the common garden pea for his ex- 
periments, crossing the giant variety, six to seven 
feet high, with the dwarf variety, three-fourths to 
one and a half feet high. The first generation of 
the hybrids were all tall, six to seven feet high. 
Therefore, as stated above, he called tallness the 
"dominant" character, and dwarfness the "recess- 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 85 

ive." The tall hybrids, on being interbred, pro- 
duced both tails and dwarfs, but invariably in the 
proportion of three to one, three tails (''dominants") 
to one dwarf (''recessive"). When the dwarfs of 
this latter, the second, generation were interbred, 
they produced all dwarfs and continued in all suc- 
cessive generations to produce all dwarfs. These 
he called "pure" recessive. When the tails of the 
second generation were interbred, they produced 
both tails and dwarfs in the same proportion as be- 
fore, three "dominants" (tall) to one "recessive" 
(dwarf). Of this generation of "dominants," one- 
third would be "pure," — that is, on being interbred 
they would produce only tall variety ("dominants") 
in all succeeding generations. The other two-thirds 
would be "impure" — that is, produce both tails and 
dwarfs in the proportion of three to one as before. 
Thus he could at will plant seed that would produce 
only tails or only dwarfs or both tails and dwarfs. 
The results he found to be invariable, and recent 
experiments, all made since his writiing were 
brought to public attention in 1900, prove that in 
both the animal and the plant world when the two 
parents have characteristics so contrasted that they 
will not blend, the proportion of the offspring which 
will have the one or the other characteristics may 
be predicted. Acting on this fact, breeders of stock 
have been able to produce at will "pure" strains of 
hornless cattle, hens without the brooding instinct, 
rabbits with long Angora hair. etc. Breeders of 
plants have been able to produce at will "pure" 
strains of wheat with immunity to rust or absence 
of beard on the ears, barley with six-rowed ears or 
with two-rowed ears, peas with white seed, etc. 

From Conklin's Heredity and Environment we 
get the following paragraphs, which make clear the 
essentials of Mendelism: 



86 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

''In the case of the peas studied by Mendel the 
hybrids of the F I generation show only the domin- 
ant character, the contrasted character being pres- 
ent but not expressed. However, in certain cases it 
has been found that the hybrids differ from either 
parent and in successive generations split up into 
both parental types and into the hybrid type; thus 
Correns found that when a white-flowered variety 
of Mirabilis, the four-o'clock, was crossed with a 
red-flowered variety all of the hybrids in the F I 
generation had pink flowers, and from those in the 
F 2 generation there came the white-flowered, pink- 
flowered and red-flowered forms." 

''In the F 2 generation and in all subsequent ones 
the pure dominants and the pure recessives always 
breed true when self-fertilized, whereas the mixed 
dominant-recessives continue to split up in each 
successive generation into pure dominants, mixed 
dominant-recessives and pure recessives in the pro- 
portion 1:2:1. The result of this is that the relative 
number of the dominants and recessives increases 
in successive generations, whereas the relative num- 
ber of mixed dominant-recessives decreases, and in 
a few generations a hybrid race will revert in large 
part to its parental types if contiued hybridization 
is prevented. On the other hand there is no tend- 
ency for the relative number of dominants to in- 
crease and of recessives to decrease in successive 
generations; an equal number of pure dominants 
and pure recessives is produced in each generation." 

"With remarkable insight Mendel recognized 
that the real explanantion of the splitting of pure 
recessives and pure dominants from hybrid parents 
must be found in the composition of the male and 
female sex cells. Since such extracted dominants 
and recessives breed true, just as pure species do, 
it must be that their germ cells are pure. In the 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 



87 



cross between pure races of white-flowered and red- 
flowered Mirabilis the germ cells which unite in 
fertilization must be pure with respect to white and 
red, though the individual which develops from 
this cross is a pink hybrid. But the fact that one- 
quarter of the progeny of this hybrid are pure white, 
and another pure red, and that these thereafter 
breed true, proves that hybrids produce germ cells 
which are pure with respect to red and white. 
Furthermore the fact that one-half the progeny of 
this hybrid are themselves hybrid may be explained 



D li 

Parent Generation • X 




Ilctcro:: fiQotr 



Diagram showing results of Mendelian splitting 
where the parents are pure dominants and pure recessives 
(homozygotes). All pure dominants are represented by black 
circles, all pure recessives by white ones, while mixed domi- 
nant-recessives (heterozygotes) are represented by circles half 
white and half black. Successive generations are marked F,, 
F„ F3, etc. - 

From Conklin's Heredity and Environment. 

by assuming that they were produced by the union 
of germ cells carrying pure white and pure red, as 
in the parental generation." 

"Mendel therefore concluded that each individual 
germ cell is always pure with respect to any pair of 
contrasting characters even though that germ cell 
has come from hybrids in which the contrasting char- 
acters are mixed. A single germ cell can carry the 
factors, or causes, for red flowers or white flowers, 
for green seeds or yellow seed, for tall stem or short 
stem, etc., but not for both pairs of these contrast- 



88 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

ing characters. The hybrids formed by crossing 
white and red four-o^clocks carry the factors for 
both white and red, but the individual germ cells 
formed by such a hybrid carry the factors for white 
or red, but not for both; these factors segregate or 
separate in the formation of the germ cells so that 
one-half of all the germ cells formed carry the factor 
for white and the other half that for red." 

This is the most important part of Mendel's law — 
the central doctrine from which all other conclusions 
of his radiate. It explains not only the segregation 
of dominant and recessive characters from a hybrid 
in which both are present, but also the relative num- 
bers of pure dominants, pure recessives, and mixed 
dominant-recessives in each generation. For if all 
germ cells are pure with respect to any particular 
character the hybrid offspring of any two parents 
with contrasting characters will produce in equal 
numbers two classes of germ cells, one bearing the 
dominant and the other recessive factor, and the 
chance combination of these two classes of male and 
female gametes will yield on the average one union 
of dominant with dominant, two unions of dominant 
with recessive, and one union of recessive with re- 
cessive, thus producing the typical Mendelian ratio, 
IDD: 2D (R):IRR. 

In the United States we have at Cold Spring Har- 
bor, Long Island, New York, the Eugenics Record 
Office, which collaborates with the biology sections 
of the Carnegie Institution in the study of the laws 
of heredity as applied to man, with the hope of find- 
ing ways to improve the human stock, to improve 
the inborn qualities of the race by a better system of 
breeding than that now in vogue. Mr. C. B. Daven- 
port, in his work, 1911, ''Heredity in Relation to 
Eugenics," sets forth the conclusions reached by 
these studies. From this work we find the inherit- 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 89 

ance of family traits, the inborn qualities, include 
eye color, hair color, hair form, skin color, stature, 
total body weight, musical ability, abilities in artistic 
and literary composition, mechanical skill, calculat- 
ing ability, memory, temperature, bodily energy 
and strength, general mental ability, epilepsy, insan- 
ity, pauperism, tendency to narcotism, criminality, 
various diseases of the nerves, rheumatism, defects 
of speech, defects of eye, ear and skin, liability to 
cancer and tumors, certain diseases of the muscular 
system and blood, and thyroid glands and blood ves- 
sels, and digestive system and reproductive organs, 
abnormalities of the skeleton, and the tendency to 
produce tv^ins. From the pages of that book we 
glean the following statements as to the inheritance 
of each of these traits : 

The inheritancje law as to eyes may be stated as 
follows : If both parents have blue eyes all their 
children will have blue eyes. If both parents have 
brown eyes, three-fourths of the children will have 
brown eyes, one-fou(rth will have blue eyes. If, 
however, either one of the parents has two brown 
eyed parents his (or her) eyes will be duplex brown, 
that is, the iris will have brown both behind and in 
front of it. In this latter case the brown eyed parent 
will have only brown eyed children, even though the 
consort be blue eyed. If one parent is blue eyed 
and the other brown eyed, but not duplex brown as 
explained, one half of the children will be brown 
eyed and one half will be blue eyed. 

It is interesting to learn that ''while in most races 
of the globe brown pigment is heavily secreted in 
the iris, in Northwestern Europe blue, gray, or yel- 
low-blue eyes are found. It seems probable that once 
upon a time, or perhaps at many times, an individual 
was born without brown pigment in the iris. The 
offspring of such prospered and spread throughout 



90 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

Nortwestern Europe and migrated thence to Ameri- 
ca and Australia. This defect, lack of iris pigment, 
has had a wonderful history. By noting its distri- 
bution the migration of peoples can be traced. Blue 
eyes are very common among he Irish and their de- 
scendants. In the Spey Valley of Scotland the dens- 
ity of pure blue eyes is high, owing prpbably to the 
Norse invasion at that point. So in our country the 
blue eyes are where the Scandinavians and North 
Germans have settled. Eye color shows no tendency 
to blend in heredity. Brown-eyed children can be 
secured from blue-eyed stock by mating with pure 
brown-eyed stock. If both parents are pure blue- 
eyed, all the children will have pure blue eyes." 

As to hair color, we find the laws of inheritance 
not so easily applied because of the fact that "half 
the persons who will eventually have black hair 
still have light to medium brown at sixteen years of 
age." The general law, however, obtains that was 
stated as to eyes. A young person with red hair has 
a strong antipathy to a red-haired person of the op- 
posite sex. **If one parent only forms red-hair germ 
cells exclusively, while the other forms exclusively 
germ cells containing the determiner for black pig- 
ment, the offspring will show no red; still less will 
red-haired offspring appear if neither parent forms 
red-haired germ cells. Red-haired offspring may 
come from the brown, or better from glossy black- 
haired parents, provided both form red-haired 
germ-cells. In that case, both dark-haired parents 
probably have ancestors with red hair." 

As to hair form — whether straight, wavy, curly 
or woolly, the law of inheritance of traits holds. If 
both parents have straight hair, then all of the chil- 
dren will have straight hair. If both parents have 
wavy hair, about three-fourths of the children will 
have curled hair and the others straight hair; but 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 91 

two curly-haired parents, both of curly haired stock 
on both sides, will probably have all curly or wavy 
haired children. 

"The skin color is due to pigment granules lying 
in the deep stratum of the skin. When both parents 
are blonds, most, if not all, of their offspring are 
blonds. If one person is blond and the other darker, 
about half the children will, on the average, be 
blond and half pigmented, but rarely darker than 
the darker parent. If both parents be dark, the per- 
centage of brunettes ranges from about 25 to zero. 
In general, whatever the mating, the children will 
not be darker than their darker parent." 

"When one parent is white and the other as dark 
as a full blooded negro, the offspring are of an in- 
termediate shade (mulatto). If two such mulattos 
marry, their offspring vary in color from mulatto to 
Caucasian skins. Two very light colored parents 
will have only light children, some of whom "pass 
for whites" away from home." 

As to stature, "the first general law is that in case 
the four grandparents are very unlike, the adult 
children will vary greatly in stature, whereas when 
the grandparental statures are closely alike, those 
of the children will be also. The second law is that 
when both parents are tall, all the children will 
tend to be tall ; but on the contrary, if both parents 
are short some of the children will be short and 
some tall. If all the grandparents are short, then 
there tend to be twice as many short children as tall." 

As to body weight, the same general laws obtain. 
Obesity may be hereditary in a family, being due to 
an inborn defect. 

Length of life is not a unit character, being due 
to such "factors as absence of defects of bodily 
structures, resistance to the commoner virulent 
germs of disease, and environmental conditions that 



92 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

maintain at its highest point internal resistance." 
The first two factors are inheritable. 

''The innateness of musical ability cannot be ques- 
tioned. The Bach family comprised twenty eminent 
musicians, and two score others less eminent." 
When both parents are exceptionally good in music, 
all the children are medium to exceptionally good. 
When both parents are poor in musical ability and 
come of ancestry that lacks on one or both sides 
such ability, the children will be non-musical. When 
one parent has high musical ability and the other 
has little, the children will vary much in this re- 
spect." 

Ability in artistic composition, in literary compos- 
ition, in mechanical skill, and in special mathematic- 
al ability follows the same rules of inheritance as 
does ability in music. So does exceptional memory. 
Artistic, literary and musical skill are unit characters 
that may occur in combinations. ''The higher grades 
of all these characters act in inheritance as though 
they were due to the absence of something that is 
present in persons of poorer ability. The person 
of high ability seems to have got rid of something 
possessed by the person of lower ability that pre- 
vents the latter from fully exercising his facilities — 
he has sloughed off one or more inhibitors. Talents 
are frequently enough with insanity as apparently to 
justify the poet's conclusion: "Great wits are sure 
to madness near allied." 

As to temperaments, we find that "the offspring 
of the phlegmatic parent tend to be phlegmatic, 
and the nervous parents of pure nervous origin have 
nervous children. One phlegmatic parent mated to 
a nervous one will produce chiefly nervous children, 
and many intermediate." The phlegmatics are slow, 
rarely depressed; the nervous are quick, often elated 
or alternately elated and depressed. 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 93 

Bodily energy and bodily strength are inherit- 
ances. 

Epilepsy and feeble mindedness follow the same 
laws of inheritance. "Two epileptic parents prob- 
ably produce only defective offspring, and the de- 
fect sometimes takes the form of epilepsy, some- 
times that of feeble-mindedness. The dangers of 
consanguineous marriage are great as likely to pro- 
duce any defect found in the ancestry." 

That form of insanity known as ''functional" is 
certainly inherited. This shows itself in the slighter 
forms as melancholia and in the profounder forms 
as dementia precox. ''The mental defect that is in- 
herited is not always of the same type. Thus in the 
same family may be found cases of melancholia, of 
senile dementia, of alcoholism and of feeble-minded- 
ness. When both parents have any form of insanity, 
all of their children go insane. If one parent is in- 
sane and the other normal, but of insane stock, half 
of the children tend to become insane. When both 
parents, though normal, belong to an insane stock, 
about one-fourth of the children become insane. It 
is fairly open to debate whether alcoholics are not 
usually mentally defective. An hereditary predis- 
position lies at the basis of most cases of insanity." 

"Pauperism usually means mental inefficiency. 
When one parent is more or less shiftless, while the 
other is industrious, only about ten per cent, of the 
children are very shiftless." 

"The desire for narcotics is a symptom of neuras- 
thenia tendency. Practically, inebriety means de- 
generacy: it is often but one of the varying mani- 
festations of bad heredity." If a glass of alcoholic 
liquor awakens a strong desire for more, the person 
will probably become a dipsomaniac. His relation 
to alcohol depends largely upon his associates; but 
his selection of associates again depends on his in- 



94 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

nate tastes. A certain young man was of such an- 
cestry that it was predicted that he would be a dip- 
somaniac. For years the youth refrained from drink, 
and led an exemplary life. Finally, he was operated 
on for appendicitis, and, to hasten recovery, the 
surgeon gave him some brandy. An uncontrollable 
appetite was awakened, and the man soon died from 
alcoholism. 

Criminality is often due to inheritance of defects. 
Pedigree studies make this certain. 

Some pedigrees show chorea in inheritance. Some 
show speech defects, as stuttering, to be in families 
as permanent afflictions. 

Many defects of the eye and ear are known to be 
inheritable. When both parents are congenitally 
deaf, one-fourth of the marriages yield some deaf 
offspring, and one-fourth of all the offspring are 
deaf. If deaf partners to a marriage belong to the 
same strain — i. e., are related — ^the deaf offspring 
rise to 45 per cent. The closer the relationship of 
the parents, the larger the proportion of deaf child- 
ren. Certain skin defects are inheritances, as the 
dry, red itching patches (psoriasis), dryness of the 
skin in which plates are formed like the scales of a 
fish (ichthyoses), etc. So also are the epidermal 
organs, glands, hair, nails and teeth. 

There is "a family liability to cancer." Also cer- 
tain diseases of the muscles and the blood, as hernia 
and chlorosis. Diseases of the thyroid gland lead- 
ing to cretinism and goiter are hereditary, as are also 
inborn defects of the heart, arteries, veins, and re- 
spiratory system. 

Of the diseases of the alimentary tract and excre- 
tion, diabetes insipidus and jaundice and gout and 
stone in the bladder may have hereditary basis. 
There are many abnormaities of the skeleton that 
are inherited, as the absence of fingers or the excess 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 95 

of fingers, deformities of the foot, as club foot. 

The same high authority as that from which are 
taken the foregoing facts on human heredity urges 
that with them all the chance of inheritance is 
greatly increased by consanguineous marriages, 
which permit defects that are not seen in the parents, 
but determinants for which are resident in their 
germ plasm, to reveal themselves in the offspring. 
Consanguineous marriages can not produce defects, 
but if there be defects common to the stock from 
which both parents descend, consanguineous mar- 
riage is sure to bring them out in the offspring. 

Foilunately, there is in the custom of almost every 
people on the earth a taboo against incest so power- 
ful that it is rarely violated. This eventuates in 
laws forbidding close intermarriage. Unfortunately 
however, there is some degree of consanguinity in 
the parents of most of us, for says Davenport, 
''there are hardly two persons of European origin 
who are more distantly related than thirtieth cousin 
— or who do not have a common ancestor of the 
time of King William I of England (1066)." It is 
also true that barriers against freedom of marriage 
are found in the religious sects, in the social classes, 
in the races, in the clans, in the language spoken, in 
the geographical facts of mountain and water — all 
tending to inbreeding with its dangers. 

It must be true that the best asset of any people 
is the germ plasm of those families that have con- 
tributed children that in every generation have 
grown to be useful and happy citizens. The greatest 
menace of any people must be from those families 
that contribute children that grow to be moral and 
physical weaklings, that spread crime and disease 
in every gerieration. Plainly the interest of the 
people lies in methods of breeding that will promote 
the former and eliminate the latter. 



96 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 



Tlie following: geolog-ical time table is taken from Osborn's 
Origin and Evolution of Life, in which sixty million years is 
takeq as the time elapsing since life was made. 



Duration of Period 


Order of Creation 


Geologic Ages 


Geologic Eras 


One-half Maiion 
Years 


Age of Man 


Caenozoic 


Quaternary 


Three Million Years 


Age of 
Mammals 


Tertiary 


m;„^ \/l\V V ^8e of 


Mesozoic 


Upf)er Cretaceous 


Lower Cretaceous 


INme IVliUion Years 


Reptiles 


Jurassic 


Triassic 


Eighteen Million 
Years 


Ageof 
Amphioians 

Ageof 
Fishes 

Age of 
Invertebrates 


Palaeozoic 


Permian 


Carboniferous 


Devonian 


Silurian 


Ordovician 


Cambrian 


Fifteen Million Years 


Evolution of 
Invertebrates 


Proterozoic 


Keeweenawan 


Huronian 


Fifteen Million Years 


Evolution of 
Unicellular Life 


Archaeozoic 


Laurentian 


Keewatin 



Joseph Barrell, Professor of Geology at Yale University, 
from studies made in 1918, gives the lapse of time since the 
beginning of the Cambrian Era, the earliest and lowest roclfs 
that contain fossils of forms that had life, to be between 550 
million and 700 million years. He gives the time of the Caen- 
ozoic, the Age since the ancestors of modern mammals lived, 
to be from 55 million to 65 million years; Mesozoic, the Age 
of Reptiles, 135 to 180 million years long; Palaeozoic, from 
earliest fossils to fishes, 360 to 540 million years long. This is 
about ten times as long as Osborn's estimate. 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 97 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Facts From Fossils 

The stratified rocks in which fossil remains of an- 
cient forms of life are found are classified according 
to the time in which they were formed into the Pale- 
ozoic, or Ancient, the Mesozoic, or Middle, and the 
Caenozoic, or Recent. 

1. The Paleozoic, the most ancient rocks that con- 
tain forms of life. Trilobites and crustaceans and 
molluscs are found in the lower rocks of this era; 
the simplest fishes and amphibia are found in its 
upper strata. The molluscs (shell fish) were for a 
long while of great size, number and variety — very 
far greater than they are now. They were the high- 
est form of life and the rulers of the seas for long 
ages. When fishes came into being, their backbone 
and higher nervous system gave them such advan- 
tage that they increased rapidly in size and number 
and variety. Because of their higher powers of body 
and mind, they overcame the molluscs; and so they 
became the rulers of the seas. 

The first back-boned animal was a sea animal and 
came into being in the Devonian era, just before the 
coal measures. At that time the land was covered 
with immense plants, the most highly developed 
then in existence being the mosses and ferns. The 
most highly developed land animals then in exist- 
ence were the worms and insects, the latter being a 
development from the former. It is because of this 
fact the eggs of all insects of the present day hatch 
into worms which are later transformed into insects. 
The era in which the coal strata were laid furnish 
us numerous fossils of beetles, cock-roaches, and of 



98 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

a gigantic insect very similar to our dragon fly, but 
with wings that measured two feet across. This 
latter was probably the most highly developed land 
animal of the Paleozoic Age. Insects then as now 
had a world wide range, and huge crustaceans — lob- 
sters, crawfish, crabs, eac, flourished on the shores 
of all seas. There were also living on the land scor- 
pions and the ancestors of our present day spiders. 
Insects, of which there are now many hundred 
thousand species, are found as fossils so far back as 
the Cambrian era, whose strata, by estimate now 
thought to be very conservative, were laid eighty 
million years ago. 

Our simplest back-boned animal, the fish, certain- 
ly arose from one of the invertebrate forms, either 
from the trilobites, sea-scorpions, crustaceans, ma- 
rine arachnids, insects, worms, molluscs, or other 
forms of the early Paleozoic times. To determine 
which of these was the ancestor of the fish and to 
find specimens of the forms intermediate between 
this ancestor and the fish have been hard tasks, for 
there seems to be but little resemblance to the fish 
among any of these invertebrates, there being a wide 
difference between the vertebrates and the inverte- 
brates ; but it now seems that the biologists have suc- 
ceeded in demonstating that the marine arachnids, 
the ancient ancestors of our present scorpions and 
spiders, and the long extinct trilobites were the an- 
cestors of the fishes. Some believe that the immedi- 
ate ancestor of the fishes was the ostracoderms 
whose skeletons are found in the Silurian and De- 
vonian formations of Europe and North America. 
Patten states his belief that "at some time toward 
the close of the Cambrian period the sea-scorpions 
gave rise to the ostracoderms (shell-skins) and the 
latter, during the Silurian, to the fishes, or first true 
vertebrates." The ostracoderms were the highest 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 99 

type of the period. The biologists have not in gen- 
eral agreed to accept the ostracoderm as the an- 
cestors. 

2. The Mesozoic or Middle Age. Many of the 
forms of the Paleozoic became extinct, as the trilo- 
bites, and many are found to persist in the Mesozoic 
and the present age. In the Mesozoic Age leptiles 
came into being and predominated. They evolved 
from the fishes through amphibian links which arose 
during the coal age, the Carboniferous period of the 
Paleozoic. The reptiles grew into m^any varieties of 
form, some of them to huge size. There were swim- 
ming reptiles that ruled the sea, walking reptiles 
that ruled the land, flying reptiles that ruled the air. 
The reptiles were descendants of fishes, the breast 
fins becoming the jointed forele^?, the pelvic fins the 
hindlegs. The earliest amphibia are found in the 
time of the coal bearing strata, and they have feet 
of five toes, just as frogs, toads and salamanders of 
today have. The wonderful change from fin of fish 
to five-toed feet of reptiles certainly took place at 
that early time; and it is as much beyond explana- 
tion as the later changes of the anas and h-ands of 
the reptile into wings. 

Out of the earliest amphibia there evolved not 
only the frogs, toads and salamanders of our day, 
but the gigantic reptiles referred to as dominating 
the land, sea and air during the periods of the Meso- 
zoic Age. Some of them grew to immense size, 
larger, indeed, than any other animal that has ever 
lived except the whale, which came into being long 
after they were extinct. Some species of a class of 
these reptiles, the dinosaurs, could stand on their 
hind limbs and reach to a tree top twenty feet high. 
Some flying reptiles had wings that were twenty feet 
from tip to tip. Many reptiles reverted to life in the 
sea, changing from land habits to swimming habits, 



100 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 



their legs and feet evolving into flippers or paddles, 
as we find in the ichthyosaurus (fish-lizard) and 
plesiosaurus; and, finding the fish an easy prey. 




they grew to immense proportions. The bones of one 
species of dinosaurs, the brontosaurus, prove that it 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 101 

was seventy-five feet long, while there were others 
reptiles which were only a few inches. The reptiles 
were thus of varied forms and sizes, there being 
thousands of species, and were as much masters of 
the earth in the Mesozoic Age as man is now. It 
seems strange that the lizards, tortoises, crocodiles 
and snakes, which now hide in dark out-of-way 
places should be their only descendants living today, 
for all over the earth we find the Mesozoic rocks 
containing the bones of reptilian monsters now ex- 
tinct that once were the rulers of land, air and sea. 

Despite the extinction of almost all the reptiles, 
science has been able with the fossils to get a fairly 
accurate picture of the earth when the reptiles were 
its masters. **We know," says H. G. Wells, "the 
forms and habits of creatures that no living being 
has ever seen, that no human eye has ever regarded, 
and the character of scenery that no man has ever 
seen or can ever possibly see ! We picture to ourselves 
the labyrinthodon raising its clumsy head above the 
water of the carboniferous swamps in which he 
lived, and we figure the pterodactyls, those great 
bird lizards, flapping their way athwart the forests 
of the Mesozoic Age with exactly the same certainty 
as that with which we picture the rhinoceros or the 
vulture. I doubt no more about the facts in this 
farther picture than I do about those in the nearest. 
I believe in the megatherium which I have never seen 
as confidently as I believe in the hippopotamus that 
has engulfed buns from my hands. Scientific criti- 
cism has discovered the Paleozoic and Mesozoic 
Ages and brought them into the world of human 
thought. We have thus become possessed of a new 
and once unsuspected history of the world." 

3. The Caenozoic or Recent Age. This age 
reaches to the present time; and because the mam- 
mals, which had come into being in the previous age, 



102 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

became predominant, it is called the Age of Mam- 
mals. The Mammals, the first found being the size of 
a small rat and of the type known as marsupials 
(bearing their young in pouches), had begun their 
existence in the early Mesozoic and for millions of 
years they remained small and insignificant, but in 
the Caenozoic they developed very rapidly, increas- 
ing in number and variety and powers until they 
took the mastery of the earth. The reptiles per- 
sisted, as did the fishes and the molluscs, but in di- 
minishing numbers and in subordinate position. The 
reptiles being cold blooded died out as colder clim- 
ates came to be of the earth. Finally man came into 
being — a mammal with superior intelligence because 
of his larger and better brain, destroying those ani- 
mals dangerous to him and preserving those useful 
to him, and so acquiring the mastery of the earth. 

We find in the Triassic period of the Mesozoic Age 
in South Carolina, Germany and South Africa rocks 
that contain the oldest remains yet found of the 
warm-blooded, fur-bearing, milk-giving animals 
which we call mammals. These early mammals 
were very tiny, none of them larger than a rat, many 
of them much smaller. Their teeth show that some 
were plant eaters, and others were flesh eaters. We 
find in the Cretaceous period, especially in Wyom- 
ing, in the sandstones formed along the shores of 
what was then an inland sea stretching from the 
Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean, numerous of the 
teeth and bones of these tiny ancestors of men and 
all other living mammals. Though millions of years 
elapsed between the Triassic period, when they were 
first found, and the close of the Cretaceous period, 
the mammals had not increased in size, probably 
for the reason that only very small animals could 
escape the immense land-living reptiles which in the 
Cretaceous period were the dominating animals. 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 103 

In the Wyoming region alluded to there have been 
found vast numbers of bones of these dinosaurs, 
some of them seventy feet long, and along with them 
the teeth and bones of the tiny mammals. Some of 
these dinosaurs had teeth and claws, and were flesh 
eaters. Prof. R. S. Lull of Yale University, who has 
made a personal study of these Wyoming beds 
l^Popular Science Monthly, September, 1915) gives 
the following sketch of the struggle and rise of the 
earliest mammals: 

''The scene is the broad savanna-like, low-lying 
lands over which wandered the huge reptiles then at 
the very culmination of their evolution. But what 
of the mammals? Where were they, and how did 
they survive the competition with the dinosaurs? 
Possibly their very insignificance was their chief 
safeguard, just as countless small rodents and insect- 
eating creatures live today in the lion- and buffalo- 
haunted African jungles. The evidence is clear that 
these mammals and the dinosaurs were contempor- 
aries in the same locality." 

"These forebears of modern beasts and man live 
long ages without measurable progress, while rep- 
tiles undergo remarkable evolution and include 
mighty forms, that soon become entirely extinct! 
But the mammals, with the tenacity of their race, 
are merely awaiting their opportunity, although so 
effective is the check laid upon them by their cold 
blooded contemporaries that for them evolution 
practically ceases while the march of time goes on. 
At last comes the day of reckoning when, due to 
some cause or causes of which we have not yet 
learned the nature, although they were doubtless 
conditioned on the mountain-making revolution 
which closed the Age of Reptiles, the dinosaurs, 
after their multimillenial career, are blotted out and 
the Age of Mammals is begun. Now from their fast- 



104 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

nesses stream the furry hosts impelled by age-long 
earth hunger, to fill every station in the economy of 
nature which the reptiles had possessed, and now 
the evolutionary mill, turning faster and faster, 
grinds out the beasts both small and great which be- 
come in their turn the rulers of the earth until their 
place is usurped by humanity." By the end of the 
next period, the Eocene, we find forms that we know 
to be ancestors of many kinds of mammals now 
living. 

The present geologic age, the Caenozoic, followed 
the era of chalk deposits, the Cretaceous of the 
Mesozoic Age, which ended some four or five million 
years ago. The geologist is able to make out with 
much accuracy many features of the earth at that 
time, its land surface and seas and the plants and 
animals then living. This fact is most clearly shown 
by excerpts from an article by Prof. Edward Berry 
of Johns Hopkins in Scientific Monthly of August, 
1917, in which he describes what he found by a 
study of the 'Taris Basin:" ''During the Upper 
Cretaceous a shallow sea of Atlantic origin invaded 
the Paris Basin. The prevailing sediments of this 
sea were earthy limestones commonly known as 
chalk, and this Upper Cretaceous chalk now out- 
crops in a broad ring around Paris, its inner margin 
lying from 30 to 100 miles distant. The chalk under- 
lies all the later deposits (the Eocene, Miocene, etc.) 
in the center of the Basin. The fossil shells that we 
dig out of the chalk and that represent the inhabit- 
ants of the Upper Cretaceous sea carry us back some 
four millions of years when man was not even a 
promise and the dinosaurs were the lords of creation. 

"The Cretaceous seas swarmed with specialized 
cephalopods known as ammonites. Thousands of 
species are known and not one survives in Eocene 
times. The changes in the other forms of marine 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 105 

life, while not so spectacular, are equally marked. 
For example, in the earliest Eocene sea of south- 
eastern North America we find an entirely different 
fauna from that found in the Cretaceous beds lying 
immediately beneath these Eocene deposits. Equal- 
ly great changes mark the earliest Eocene terrestrial 
faunas and floras. For example, about 350 species 
of plants are known from the lower Eocene of south- 
eastern North America and not one of these plants 
has been found in the Upper Cretaceous anywhere. 
We are in an apparently new world in Eocene times. 

''Between Sezanne and Reims a considerable area 
is occupied by marls and limestones. These are 
freshwater limestones and marls that were deposited 
in a large lake or series of ponds, as is indicated by 
the variety and numbers of shells of pond snails 
found fossil in these deposits. Nearly fifty different 
kinds are known and these include some land snails. 
In the lakes and rivers were fish of various kinds in- 
cluding the curious mud fishes (amia) and swarms 
of gar pikes (lepidosteus) both now confined to 
North America. Turtles of several kinds were abun- 
dant and salamanders have also been found. Croco- 
diles basked on the banks or hunted in the waters 
and these included both the Nile type of crocodile 
and the long-snouted Ganges type or gavial. 

''The shores were densely wooded with broad- 
leafed warm-temperature types of trees. At Sezanne 
we can almost reconstruct the whole picture. A 
swift-flowing stream, as shown by its pebbly bed, 
cascaded from a low chalk escarpment into a damp 
wooded ravine which opened into the Rilly lake. 
Mosses and stoneworts sheltered the crayfish. 
Moisture-loving plants, like the two marchantites, 
and a variety of ferns covered the stream banks 
which were overhung by figs and laurels, magnolias, 
walnuts, maples and a host of tree types since be- 



106 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

come extinct or no longer found in Europe. Insects 
and even such delicate objects as flowers are faith- 
fully preserved in the travertine. (This is the white 
chalky stuff that was deposited in water that held 
lime in solution.) Altogether twelve species of fern 
have been found at Sezanne, and these include sev- 
eral of the tree fern genera, eloquent witnesses of 
the humid climate. Ten different species of laurel 
have been found at Sezanne and these include a 
sassafras now confined to North America. Dryo- 
phyllum, which is considered the ancestral stock 
from which both the oaks and chestnuts were de- 
rived, was very common along the borders of the 
lower Eocene sea both in Europe and America. Mag- 
nolia is another Sezanne type that is no longer found 
in Europe, but is now confined to southeastern North 
America and southeastern Asia. Some of the m.ore 
familiar Sezanne tj^pes were bayberries or swamp 
myrtle, alders, birches, elms, cottonwoods, maples, 
willows, sheepberries, buckthorn and cornel. 

''A few^ of the land animals that roamed in the 
Sezanne woods have been discovered around Reims. 
They have been found in the seashore and river 
channel gravels which also contain sharks' teeth and 
molluscan shells of mixed marine and estuary forms. 
Scattered bones represent the land animals that 
were accidentally drowned or whose dead carcasses 
were swept down the streams into the estuaries and 
coastal lagoons. These give us a welcome glimpse 
of the terrestrial animal life of these early times. 
They comprise small insectivores, lemur-like forms, 
small gnawing marsupials, numerous primitive carni- 
vores and a few primitive hoofed animals, an assem- 
blage much like that found in the Puerco beds of 
New Mexico and of similar age. In these earliest 
Eocene times the plants and animals of the whole 
Northern Hemisphere were much alike and were 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 107 

able to migrate freely from Europe and Asia to and 
from North America." (There were then land areas 
in what is now the upper parts of the Atlantic ocean 
and the Pacific ocean.) 

The ''small insectivores, lemur-like forms, small 
gnawing marsupials, numerous primitive carnivores 
and a few primitive hoofed animals" which compris- 
ed the highest animals during Eocene nmes, about 
four millions of years ago, are long ago extinct. 
They were the descendants of the earliest mammals, 
which were about the size of a small rat and which 
came into existence perhaps a million of years before 
the Eocene era. The Eocene mammals were them- 
selves the ancestors of the modernized mammals, 
as the horse, dog, hog, cat, monkey and man. 

From each of the types of mammals then living 
and now extinct there came descendants whose 
forms changed through the long centuries to ''be- 
come better adapted to many and highly diversified 
places in the economy of nature." For instance, 
"the feet which are correlated chiefly with the limb 
and body structure, and the teeth, which are corre- 
lated chiefly with the skull and neck structure, 
diverge from an earlier form and evolve independ- 
ently in adaptation to securing food and to eating 
food under different conditions of life and in differ- 
ent environments. Each part evolves directly to 
perform its own mechanical functions and purposes, 
yet in such a manner that each subserves all the 
other parts." (Osborn). 

All the biologists agree in teaching that man and 
the higher apes are related and are derived from 
a common stock. Their views on this most interesting 
subject are set forth by The New International Year 
Book, 1916, page 35, as follows: 

"Man and the anthropoid apes have been derived 
from a primitive anthropoid stock, man's nearest liv- 



108 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

ing relatives being the chimpanzee and gorilla. 
While with the latter, however, ancestral habits and 
character of brain, teeth, skull and limbs have per- 
sisted, the forerunners of man underwent a pro- 
found change in function, giving up arboreal 
frugivorous adjustments and becoming at an early 
period terrestrial, bipedal, and predatory, with the 
development of crude flints for cutting up and 
smashing the varied food. The ancestral stock from 
which man, the gorilla, and the chimpanzee have 
sprung is represented by two Upper Miocene genera, 
sivapithecus and dryopithecus (large extinct apes 
of the middle Miocene of France and elsewhere). 
The sivapithecus is more directly the ancestor of 
man. Man differs from the sivapithecus largely in 
the way of retrogressive changes due to the alter- 
ation of his food habits. There have been a retrac- 
tion of the face and dental arch, the reduction of the 
canines and of the jaw muscles, as well as the loss of 
the prehensile character of the great toe. Other 
differences are secondary adjustment in relative pro- 
portions connected with the change from semi-arbor- 
eal to fully terrestrial bipedal locomotion. The hom- 
inidae (races of men) probably branched off from 
the simiidae (races of apes) not earlier than the Mio- 
cene or even Upper Miocene." 

Osborn, the leading biologist of our country, esti- 
mates that the human race emerged from the ape 
forms and began walking upright and using its hand 
to fashion tools at least 525,000 years ago, or about 
the end of the Pliocene era. He says that ''man as 
such was evolved chiefly during the half million 
years of the Pleistocene epoch." A jawbone found 
in 1907 seventy-nine feet below the surface of a 
sandy bluff in Heidelberg, Germany, was that of a 
man who lived at least 250,000 years ago. 

So much as to the fossil remains of animals. The 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 109 

remains found in the rocks of the first unmistakable 
plants are so highly organized that it is beyond any 
doubt true that there was a long series of simpler 
forms antecedent to them that required for their de- 
velopment long ages — perhaps several geologic eras. 
There is, however, reason to believe that the bacteria 
and blue-green algae now existing are like the 
earlier forms of plant life. The earliest plants may 
be assumed to have been one-celled greenish indi- 
viduals moving about in the water. They probably 
abounded in the seas of the earlier geologic epochs 
when there was but little salt in the water of the 
ocean. As the saltness of the water increased, the 
descendants of some of the one-celled algae devel- 
oped into seaweeds, the red and the brown, some of 
which, the giant kelps of the Pacific, become the 
highest forms of marine plants; while others of the 
primitive green algae developed in bodies of fresh 
water to become the ancestors of all higher forms 
of land plants. The ferns developed roots and 
spores, the roots conducting the water to the tissues 
and developing a body with stem and leaves. The 
spores being able to resist dryness and cold develop- 
ed in higher plants into seeds. By variations in 
subsequent ages, the present forms of roots, stems, 
leaves and flowers were gradually acquired, the 
forms adapting themselves to plain and mountain, 
to heat and cold, to moist and dry conditions. 

All types of plants now on the earth except the 
highest types of seed plants, the angiosperms, are 
found in the fossils of the Paleozoic Age. In the De- 
vonian part of that age, we find the ferns and primi- 
tive seed plants which developed into such luxuriant 
growths in the Carboniferous. In that age, however, 
the fossils show that all over the earth the plants 
were nearly the same, there being little or no differ- 
ence between the fossils of the Carboniferous Era 



110 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

found in the Arctic regions and those in the Tropical 
regions. Then ferns, mosses, liverworts and horse- 
tails were all over the earth. The various regions 
of the earth now have plants very different from 
each other. After the Carboniferous Era the fossil 
plants gradually changed to their present forms in 
the various zones. During the Permian Era, that 
just after the Carboniferous, the fossil flora of the 
northern and southern hemisphers showed marked 
differences, and the modern firs, pines and cycads 
begin to appear. During the Mesozoic Age, the age 
of the great reptiles and the age that produced birds 
and mammals among animals, the highest plants 
first appear, the angiosperms, with their arraj^ of 
flowers. These appear quite suddenly in the strata 
of the Cretaceous era, the last period of the Meso- 
zoic Age, the poplars, willows, planes, tulip trees, 
and magnolias then being found widely distributed 
in the northern hemisphere. After this, in the Ter- 
tiary geologic age, we find the remains of oaks. 

We can now plainly see the fact that forms of life 
which began as a simple cell in the earliest Paleo- 
zoic Age became more complex and various from age 
to age; that forms of life underwent a ''continuous, 
progressive ch'ange according to certain laws by 
means of resident forces," (LeConte), for not only 
do we find in the oldest lowest rocks the simplest, 
least organized forms, but in tracing the forms from 
stratum to stratum we find ''successively forms more 
and more complex in structure, in the interaction of 
correlated parts and in the interaction with the en- 
vironment, until we reach the highest structure only 
in the present time." This makes plain the fact that 
the present forms of life are what they are because 
of their being the last of a long series of changes — 
of a process of evolution. The continuous, progress- 
ive changes from the age in which fungi and algae 



THE xMAKING OF LIVING THINGS 111 



BIANS REOTIL 




From Scientific Monthly, Nm^ember, 1916. Oshorn's Evolution of Life. 
Order of Appearance and Expansion of the Classes 
of Vertebrate Animals. 




J> CAENOZOIO 



J> MESOZOIG 



} PALEOZOIC 



From Andreics Botany. 



Development of Plants 



112 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

were the highest forms of plants and molluscs were 
the highest forms of animals to the present time is 
seen in rough outline in the accompanying diagrams. 
The ferns developed in the era just before the Car- 
boniferous and the firs and pines just afterward. 

It is conceded that the evolution of the multifar- 
ious forms of life has required many millions of 
years, probably many hundreds of millions. It is 
impossible to form an opinion as to the age of the 
earth — to find the time when, from dispersed matter, 
the law of gravitation orbed our planet and sent it 
spinning around the sun in days and years — but the 
geologists are agreed that an approximate estimate 
can be made of the number of millions of years that 
have elapsed since the first stratum of sediment was 
laid on the plutonic rocks in the bottom of the ocean. 

As one atom of oxygen and two atoms of hydro- 
gen will invariably rush into combination and be- 
come the steam or hot watery vapor when they, as 
gases, are subjected to a temperature of 5,000 de- 
grees Farenheit, it must have happened that when 
our earth's surface had lowered its temperature to 
this point a surface crust would be formed, the hy- 
drogen and oxygen gases of its atmosphere and its 
interior would be converted into steam, and a 
still further cooling of this crust would cause the 
condensation of the steam into water, with which 
the entire surface of the earth would be covered. 
As some of the land areas were elevated above 
others, continents and ocean basins would be formed. 
Thus the settling of the water in the ocean basins 
would be followed by the formation of continents 
of land whose surface would be eroded by the action 
of water, which, as rivers, would carry the eroded 
material to the sea, where it would sink to the bot- 
tom and form the stratified rocks. The geologists 
are agreed that since the oldest strata on the earth 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS lir. 

were thus laid there have elapsed hundreds of mil- 
lions of years. Some geologists estimate the time at 
many hundred million years. The period of time 
has been sufficiently long to make sedimentary de- 
posits into strata which, if all of them were laid one 
above the other at the same place, would make a 
height of fifty miles above that first laid. The time 
necessary to accumulate this enormous thickness of 
sediment on the crust, the time necessary to wear 
away certain known elevated surfaces of land by the 
action of water and wind and frost, the time neces- 
sary to derive the salt and other contents of the 
ocean from the land by the washings of rivers (for 
the ocean was at first pure water) — ^these, with cer- 
tain other data known to the chemist and physicist, 
make the basis for the estimate of geologic time. 
This estimate must be fairly accurate, for the differ- 
ent methods of computing reach approximately the 
same result. In the same way as that by which the 
scientists estimate the number of years since the 
oldest strata of rocks were laid, they determine the 
number of years since those strata containing the 
earliest fossil forms of life were laid. The last era, 
the Age of Mammals, is estimated by Osborne and 
others to be four millions of years, and as the geolo- 
gists reckon this age to be approximately one- 
twentieth of the whole time since the most ancient 
rocks containing fossils were laid, we may safely say 
in answer to the question, "How long since life ap- 
peared on the earth?" to be not less than eighty 
million years. The probability is that it is much 
more. (Osborne). 

It is interesting to note that it has required about 
three million years for our horse to develop from 
from a four-toed ancestor, the eohippus. We can 
form some estimate of the earth changes during 
that time from the facts that where the Alps, the 



114 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

Pyrenees, and Himalaya Mountains now are there 
were then level surfaces partly washed by the sea 
and that the Colorado River had not then begun to 
carve the canon that is now 6,000 feet deep. 

Every stage in progress of the horse toward a form 
that gave him more fleetness, larger size, and other 
qualities that enabled him to survive we should re- 
member was due to changes made in the egg-cell 
from which the individual horse developed. The egg 
changes consisted of either the making of new 
chemical bodies or the dropping out of chemical 
bodies or a change in the constitution of one or more 
of the chemical bodies that make up the chromo- 
somes in the nucleus of the egg. These little chemi- 
cal bodies in the egg determine the shape of the head 
and foot and every other feature of the adult. As 
has been stated, though we can not explain how it is 
done, the changes in the intimate structure of the 
seed or egg are brought into being by changes in 
the environment — in the light, heat, climate, 
vicissitudes of all kinds, food supply, soil, methods 
of protection against enemies, and every stimulus 
that reaches the organism. If the change in the egg 
produces a change in the adult of distinct advantage 
to its life the variety will persist. 

The power of a different environment to change 
the forms of animals and plants is made very clear to 
us when we see that in all those areas where the 
geologists find that there were sudden and vast 
changes in the land levels and climates, the fossils 
of the strata then laid always show the rapid ex- 
tinction of many forms of life and the appearence of 
many new forms, the rapid evolution of new types 
of animals and plants. The strata of the earth also 
show that fossil forms remain constant in type dur- 
ing ages when conditions are constant. It is because 
conditions have been constant on most parts of the 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 115 

globe for a long time during the present age that we 
find so few changes in progress in the forms of 
plants and animals now existing. 

During the time when the great Appalachian area 
of North America was being uplifted many varieties 
of animals and plants whose remains are now found 
as fossil became extinct and forms not hitherto seen 
were evolved, some of them to become the ancestors 
of certain of our common birds and reptiles of this 
age. But, according to Prof. S. W. Williston, the 
most remarkable and extensive quickening of the 
evolutionary process took place in Asia during the 
Pliocene Age while the vast Himalayan plateau was 
being raised from near the sea level to miles above 
coincidently with a change of climate from almost 
tropical warmth to almost arctic cold. In the Plio- 
cene strata, so the paleontologists tell us, we find 
in Java the top of the skull, several teeth and a thigh 
bone, lying at certain distance from each other, of an 
extinct animal half man and half ape, whose des- 
cendants probably became man, who, in his long 
contest with the glacial epoch, had to live in caves 
and clothe himself in the skin of beasts in order to 
withstand the cold. Thus probably he lost his own 
covering of hair, which atrophied because for long 
it was of no advantage. They tell us that in Central 
Asia they find fossil remains of the ancestors of most 
of our domestic animals, the cow, the buffalo,the 
sheep, the goat, the horse, the ass, the elephant. 
They also tell us that the hog was evolved in India, 
and was there domesticated. The peccary, a kind of 
hog found in America, is not found below Oligocenc 
stratum. The reindeer, the ancestor of the cari- 
bous, evolved in Central Asia, as did also the cat, 
the highest of the carnivora. Fossil remains of the 
immediate ancestor of the dog have not been found, 
but as there are wild dogs in Asia today that are 



116 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

similar to many strains of our domesticated dog, it 
seems probable that he also arose there. Indeed, 
the only domestic animals of the mammal class that 
did not originate in Asia are the camel and its kins- 
men, the llamas and alpacas, which arose from lower 
forms in North America. They tell us also that the 
fossil remains of the immediate ancestors of the 
chicken and ostrich and peacock and goose and dove 
and duck are found in these same Pliocene strata 
of Asia, and also that they find there and then the 
fossil remains of the immediate ancestors of the ma- 
jority of our domestic plants. (S. W. Williston, 
Popular Science Monthly, Dec. 1910.) 

As all the animals and plants named above have 
undergone but little variation for the last several 
thousand years, and as they are known to be from 
ancestors that underwent vast changes of form 
and other qualities during the changing conditions 
of the Pliocene Age, it must be a safe assertion to 
say that a changed environment is everywhere 
capable of working variations that will remain con- 
stant so long as the environment is constant, as it has 
been for the most part on the earth since the advent 
of the present geologic age, and that as the environ- 
ment changes corresponding variation will in time 
appear. The forces at work in the Pliocene Age may 
be assumed to have been the same as those which are 
now acting, but they were then combined dif- 
ferently, and they were far more intense. It seems, 
therefore, to be manifest that it is the strains and 
stresses due to changes in the environment that have 
changed the few simple forms that we find in the 
early Cambrian Age, and that were laid there per- 
haps more than a hundred million years ago, into 
the hundreds of thousands of highly specialized 
varieties that make up the world of life as we now 
have it. 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 117 
CHAPTER VII. 

The Cycle of Creation 

Recent researches in physics and chemistry reveal 
the fact that all things are built of electrons. They 
prove beyond all doubt that the atoms of the eighty- 
three elements known to us and heretofore supposed 
to be the ultimate and indestructible particles of 
matter are each and all composed of units of electri- 
cal force. The atoms are therefore temporary elec- 
trical structures. 

The atoms of these eighty-three different elements 
vary in size and weight, the largest being composed 
of the greatest number of electrons and therefore 
the heaviest. One hundred millions of the largest 
atoms may be laid side by side on a linear inch. 
Three hundred millions of the smallest may be laid 
on an inch. These dimensions, though inconceivably 
small, are now well established as facts. 

As the electrons make up the atoms of all mater- 
ial bodies and as the movement of electrons causes 
all the light and heat and energy of the universe, it 
must be true that all things, all forms and all quali- 
ties of all forms, are created by the mutual influence 
of electrons. As the higher animals are among the 
objects made up of these electrons and as the higher 
animals feel, think and act there must be that in the 
electron from which the feeling, acting and think- 
ing of individuals is derived. The electron is known 
to be a self-active individual sensitive to the influence 
of other electrons. This is all that is known of it ex- 
cept its size and force ; but as we know that it is the 
building stone of every form of matter in the uni- 
verse, it would seem to be logical to conclude that 



118 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

the qualities of every structure in the universe are 
derivatives from qualities of the electron, which 
seems to be spiritual as well as material in its nature. 
The spirit of God is embodied in it. Its sensitivity 
is the probable source of the special sensations of 
sight, sound, touch, etc., which give to animals their 
picture of the world and of the self, the content of 
their consciousness. There is much reason to be- 
lieve that the electron itself is a conscious being. It 
is certainly sensitive and probably endowed with a 
mental quality of greater power than the special 
senses of sight, sound, touch, etc., which seem to be 
derivatives from it. 

The making of atoms and the making of all other 
forms through a process of evolution in which liv- 
ing forms come into existence under certain con- 
ditions and evolve to higher forms are sketched 
briefly in the following stanzas. The author hopes 
that they will assist the reader in visualizing the 
scheme of things entire. 



^* .s^* ^■' 



Electrons move and feel and live. 

Creative force of God, 
Their mutual pull and push do give 

The world, its soul and sod. 

XL 

Electrons must together draw 
To make all atoms known. 

And these by gravitation's law 
In glowing globes are thrown. 



THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 119 



III. 

The sun thus came and gave the earth, 
Whose dust became life's cell, 

And groups of cells led to the birth 
Of forms in which minds dwell. 

IV. 

Amoeba, worm, insect and then 
The backboned tribes were cast. 

Fish, reptiles, birds and mammals, when 
The apes and men rose last. 



And so with plants: bacillus first. 
Then algae green, then fern. 

Then pine, then oak, then roses burst 
And daisies flash in turn. 

VI. 

Whatever be the form, its seed 

Unfolds life's stages won. 
And moth or man is born, God's deed 

Through evolution done. 

VII. 

Life's evolution will not rest 
On heights the past has known. 

More joy is the incessant quest, 
More justice on the throne. 

VIII. 

New forms will rise with powers cast 
Above man's poor weak way; 

The aeons vast already past 
Are only half life's day. 



120 THE MAKING OF LIVING THINGS 

IX. 

But what begins must end : the old 
Must change and pass away, 

The sun and earth grow dark and cold, 
Then cease to be for aye. 

X. 

The planets all to sun will fall 

And there through space will ride. 

In light of twinkling stars, a pall. 
Till sun and star collide. 

XL 

A nebula is then begun 

Which unrolls nature's years. 

Revolving globes spin round a sun, 
And life again appears. 






